Professional Charcuterie

This is a textbook on charcuterie that might be used in a cooking school class. There are tons of definitions provided for various cold kitchen terms. There is a modest list of sauces, but no instructions for making them. I found the recipes and instructions for various types of aspic useful. I have used the recipes in this book to compare with other sources. I have made a couple pates using the instructions in this book and they came out pretty good. There are lots of pate, sausage, and cured meat recipes. This is not a beginner book and assumes quite a bit of cooking knowledge or a chef teacher looking over your shoulder. I like perusing the recipes for ideas and to confirm ratios. I would check this out at the local library rather than buy. There are better books for the home chef out there. That said, it is instructive and provides a window into big kitchen charcuterie techniques as they stood in 1996. If you require your cookbooks to have glossy photos galore, then don’t bother with this one. Other than a few B&W line drawings and about 15 faded B&W photos of sausage stuffing techniques and equipment, it is all text. This is not a bad book, it is a book for a very experience home chef or professional chef.