I had no idea who August Escoffier was before I entered culinary school. The first day of class Chef Charters introduced us to the book you see above and we should buy it immediately…..she wasn’t kidding. We referenced this book more than any other book and I will continue to derive a lot of recipes from this book throughout my career.

August Escoffier was a freaking genius. He wrote this book in 1903 that helped modernize French cooking and he also helped organize hotel kitchens. The first hotel he helped oragnize was the Savoy then after being implicated for stealing wine he and Cesar Ritz opened the Paris Ritz.

Escoffier organized the kitchen by creating the brigade system as shown below:

This system revolutionizd the hotel industry and is still seen today in different variations. It gave Chefs different tasks instead of all the Chefs making each plate to order.   Saucier, focus on the sauce!  His system also directed the front of the house (waiters, host, etc..) so each person would have their designated task in order to better serve each person.

This book has over 5,000 recipes and I will be posting them as I continue posting on this blog. When I do make a recipe from this book I will just post the recipe number and name. It’s pretty intense and I suggest you go check it out at a Barnes and Noble or other book store….it’s pretty rare to see a library that carries this so you’ll have to do your research before you go.

I know this isn’t much of a book review but trust me, go buy this if you want to get serious about French cooking or even if you want 1,200 different variations of sauces……yeah 1,200!

Eric