Mastering the Art of French Cooking (Volume One) by Julia Child, Louisette Bertholle, and Simone Beck

Not everyone should own this book today. Most people seem to buy it out of some romantic notion of Francophilia, or perhaps under the assumption that it's a good cookbook upon which to build a collection or a working home kitchen. And, truly, the writing is clear and swift, technique is given honest and thorough attention, ingredients are carefully considered, and the recipes all work very well. Mastering the Art of French Cooking, however, is closer to a textbook than a recipe book. The recipes are detailed and long and precise, require pots and pans and stamina and lots of time. But if you want to learn to cook, reading this book and following its recipes is cheaper than culinary school, and, to my mind, nearly as good. To be clear, none of that should obscure the historical fact of this book's overwhelming importance. It came at a time when, for the first time, nearly every American home had a refrigerator, a stove, and a newfound but reliable comfort with processed and pre-packaged