Methods and Material on the one hand (Volume 1), Dishes and Ingredients on the other (Volume 2).

That is how French Cooking Terms, a non-exhaustive collection in two volumes, was divided, to facilitate initiation into a living art, understanding how it’s said and done. Care was taken to always show the multiplicity of styles and the diversity of cooking jargon, which is gleaned from realms as far-reaching as violence and war, sex and music, and which hijacks the usual meanings of certain terms.
Cooking Terms bears witness to the evolution in practices and techniques that have fashioned the history of the grand tradition of French cuisine, from the Middle Ages to the early 21st century, highlighting co-habitations, confronting the old and the new, the classic and the contemporary.

The authors have defined words that were common once (en buisson, à la Nantua, roux, crapaudine); those that still are (braiser, émincer, blanchir, chemiser…); those that have been introduced more recently (plancha, snacker, siphon, carpaccio); those whose charm is old-fashioned, forgotten, aural or literary, but which nevertheless remain tied to the grand tradition of French cuisine (abricoter, fleuron, chiqueter, canneler, historier.) In a word, the music of the language…
Combining reflections and observations, drawing, if need be, on etymology, history, culture and anecdote, this book is aimed at a wide audience and is intended as a reference book.
It contains over seven hundred entries, approximately two hundred illustrations and some fifty new recipes.

An enjoyable, informative and attractive culinary dictionary, illustrated with line drawings and new recipes to help us learn the origins and uses of the most mouthwatering culinary terms.