Mastering the art of French cooking
by Julia Child · first published 1967
67% recommend33% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Teaches technique, not just recipes: opens with ingredients, tools and methods, then gives master recipes with variations. Suits people who want to learn to cook properly and welcome in-depth instructions.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
Illustrates the ways in which classic French dishes may be created with American foodstuffs and appliances.
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Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
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…http://www.amazon.com/Fish-Complete-Guide-Buying-Cooking/dp/... * Harold McGee, On Food and Cooking (unrivaled, in depth, the go-to resource for food hackers) -- http://www.amazon.com/Food-Cooking-Science-Lore-Kitchen/dp/0... * Julia Child, Mastering the Art of French Cooking (the original food hacker) -- http://www.amazon.com/Mastering-Art-French-Cooking-Vol/dp/03...
on “Why your desk job is slowly killing you” ↗…also give people a standard reading/homework list: -- Michael Pollan's essay Unhappy Meals -- Deborah Madsion's Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone -- Howard McGee's On Food and Cooking -- Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking -- Watch "Food, Inc" and "King Corn"
on “How to lose weight: What worked for me, with graphs” ↗…Technique [2], its short and digestible (puns always intended) increments of learning that, while old, are fundamental and classic. If you can work through La Technique and something like Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking [3] (Which is great, but, very dense) you could move on to (and invest in -- they really are expensive) Modernist Cuisine [4], for which I think you need a good basic education on the fundamental building…
on “Baking with the Bread Whisperers of Paris” ↗There are books and YouTube videos that explain how to prepare food. A couple of personal favourites are Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Julia Child et al, and the Roux Brothers BBC series (on YouTube). These things have to be learnt just like anything else.
on “We Should Be Eating More Canned Fish?” ↗Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking is great. It can’t be your only cookbook—-the amount of butter will literally kill you—-and some of the recipes area bit dated (so many aspics!). However, the first part of the book focuses on techniques:…
on “Why do recipe writers lie about how long it takes to caramelize onions? (2012)” ↗La Technique, Jacques Pepin Mastering The Art Of French Cooking, Julia Child These books are a combination of background information, recipe, and step by step instruction. So these are more a reference of how to write an implementation guide or Runbook, rather than…
on “Ask HN: Examples of good technical writing?” ↗I learned to cook from "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" by Julia Child et al. I still think it's the best instructive cook book I've ever seen (with the exception of some bread books, of which there are numerous incredible examples).
on “The Why of Cooking (2017)” ↗I am an avid cook. I agree with much of your assessment. Have you tried Julia Child’s first books “Mastering the Art of French Cooking”? Her books are very in depth and start with clearly written descriptions of techniques and what to look for. This does mean that recipes can be many times longer than most other books. Julia Child’s…
on “Wikimedia Cookbook” ↗…Own Cookbook”, which has decent recipes that aren’t a huge production. After that, get the “Joy of Cooking”, which has a huge number of recipes from many cuisines. Also, take a look at Julia Child’s “Mastering the Art of French Cooking”. You may not be interested in many of the recipes (e.g., aspic) or even French food, but I found it very helpful to see how a “master” recipe could be forked into many different dishes. 2. When you…
on “An app can be a home-cooked meal” ↗Want to actually learn how to cook, no bullshit? Read Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Then read Jacques Pepin's La Technique. Then watch Jacques' old tv show Fast Food My Way. You will become a decent cook just from these 3 sources. It covers all the basics you need to know, and the rest…
on “Cooking for Founders” ↗…century that cookbooks for home cooks came out, and they too didn't explain much. If you are really interested in cooking, either take a class, or buy a book that teaches you how to cook. La Technique and Mastering the Art of French Cooking are excellent instruction manuals. If you learn better from video, Jacques Pepín did a 3 hour video of cooking mostly everything in La Technique.
on “Why do recipe writers lie and lie about how long it takes to caramelize onions?” ↗…French, but the amount of stuff left is shrinking. For anyone who wants to learn to cook my advice is not to learn recipes but instead learn ingredients, tools and techniques. Good books like Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking dedicate many pages to this before they get into recipes (this book incidentally sets out the ingredients better than any other cooking book or website I've ever seen). Where YouTube shines is the techniques.…
on “Julia Child's Kitchens” ↗…alcohol, use the best that you can afford (which is usually whatever thing is taxed less in your country -- in Japan, whiskey is oddly efficient). I learned how to cook, originally, from the 3 volume "Mastering the Art of French Cooking", so I err on the side of relying on soup stocks for things. Making a good soup stock is super important and is one of the things I recommend practicing a lot. You can buy soup stock, but especially…
on “Ike Jime, the Japanese Slaughter Method for Tastier Fish” ↗I loved the "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" book. I mean it must something subversive to be sold on the darkweb. Edit: the other object are interesting: credit card, spy camera...
on “Random Darknet Shopper: A Live Mail Art Piece” ↗…by week two. Discovered asian super markets a few blocks away, got some cookbooks and some gear, and started learning how to cook authentic asian cuisines. Then started reading up through Julia Childs "Mastering the Art of French Cooking," lived with a couple other passionate foodies, and never looked back. If I had to pick out a few common threads between these, it would probably be that they had mechanisms for giving direct, and fairly…
on “Ask HN: How did you find your passion?” ↗