Mastering the Art of French Cooking (2 Volume Box Set): A Cookbook

Why it's worth it

Julia Child's two-volume set is still the clearest course in classic French technique: stocks, sauces, pastry, and explanations long enough to tell you exactly what to look for. It's six and a half pounds of book, and it asks for your weekends rather than your weeknights.

Open to any recipe and you'll see what makes it different: steps written out at a length no modern publisher would allow. You learn to brown meat properly, to deglaze, to finish a sauce with butter, to make puff pastry without a machine. Owners who don't consider themselves confident cooks still report getting these recipes right, because almost nothing is assumed about what you already know.

The technique transfers far beyond French food. Once you can build a pan sauce, you can improvise with chicken thighs and whatever wine is open. Owners say over and over that this set taught them to cook in general, not just to cook French. That's the same argument we make for Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat, arrived at from the opposite direction — one book gives you principles, this one gives you reps.

From our review of 5 cookbooks for home chefs, by Genevieve Dubois, Home & Living Expert

What we like

• +Open to any recipe and you'll see what makes it different: steps written out at a length no modern publisher would allow
• +The technique transfers far beyond French food
• +The box set is the right way to buy it
• +It's a reading commitment more than a buying one

What to know

• –The food is rich. This is butter and cream, generously, from a time with different ideas about what dinner should be, and owners…
• –It's physically awkward, too