Ma Gastronomie, by Fernand Point. Is it really a cookbook? Yes, sort of. Do the recipes in there work? Yes, sort of. The recipes are haute cuisine of the Gilded Age, and while they are inspirational and influential and revealing, they are (no longer) the point of this slim but seminal volume.
This book houses the heart and the soul of French professional cooking. Yes, Auguste Escoffier was the great-grand-godfather of all Western chefdom as we know it. He gave it structure, he gave it data. He built the brigade for us, he wrote the grand tome of recipes. But it is Point’s personality, panache, wisdom, and wit that are the flesh and blood of three-star French cuisine.
As I told you in my welcome letter to you, I want you to stand on my shoulders as a chef. That puts you in a pure bloodline back to Fernand Point (and only a few generations away). Reading Ma Gastronomie is an essential step in understanding where you came from as a chef, and what the chef who trained the chef who trained the chef who trained the chef who trained you actually saw, heard, felt, and tasted throughout his workday.
There is no substitute for this knowledge and your training will not be complete without it. Reading this book has always felt, to me, like discovering ancient scrolls or a treasure map or some such. Ma Gastronomie possesses an indelible and timeless appeal. If this industry is the one for you, it will grab you and never let you go.