October is a different month. The Escoffier by Auguste Escoffier is a suggested book of the month for for the Left Coast Culinary Book Club. I say suggested because technically there is no selected book but the theme is Escoffier himself. This is also a different kind of month because this is going to be the first time ever that I will not read the book.

According to what I have heard so far, Escoffier was the first celebrity chef. Born in 1846, he was a restaurant rock star by the turn of the century. Unfortunately, that came to a crashing end when he was fired for skimming at his flagship London restaurant. While formally accepting the charges and partially paying the losses, he never publicly admitted to guilt. This was the pinnacle of his career which continued on but in a much subdued fashion.

This book (pictured), is sort of the codification of French cooking. He took what people knew and did and put it into a formal reference. This was the revolution that he brought to the food scene, particularly in areas of Europe outside of France.

Let me speak to the elephant in the room. For someone that reads almost everything that I run across, why am I not reading this? I have skimmed through the book and it is a cookbook. It is a cookbook that is in the style of “The Joy of Cooking” meaning that that it is almost 1000 pages of words. It is more important to contain the information than actually making it useable.

I will use an example. I was looking up fish recipes and I go to the one that I want. It then refers to another section of the book for the foundation technique/sauce. This is also something that is done in the “Joy of Cooking”. While this is a good way to re-enforce consistency, it is very hard on the user.

The book is also written in a dialect of English that is not familiar. I believe that it is a direct printing from the original. As a result, I believe that it is dated with colloquial phrases and words that are just difficult to read. You add to that French words and page flipping to get the whole picture and you can see that reading is going to be difficult.

I bought the book even though I was not planning on reading it, it seems like the authority of cooking seemed appropriate. To be honest, there are very few books that I buy with the intent of never reading. I probably should have purchased a biography or something that would have been more interesting than another cookbook but the decision was made.

Can I recommend the book aside from my hesitations? Generally speaking I would say no. There is always someone outside with the perfect puzzle piece fit. I cant think of any in this canned, mushroom soup era. You would have to be a dedicated fan or historian or something of that nature to really get energized about this book. I know, it is a little disingenuous to poo poo something that I have not fully given it a shot. I didn’t really know anything until I ordered it.

End Your Programming Routine: I don’t really mean to be negative, I just don’t see myself using this book. I barely open the “Joy of Cooking” for the same reasons. I don’t like turning the page to continue the recipe or to refer back to previous recipes. It doesn’t mean that it is a bad reference, it is about the spatial relationship and organization of information which we have much better mechanisms through technology today. By all means, feel free to disagree.