Ducasse Flavors of France

In his long-awaited American cookbook debut, M. Ducasse whares the principles and techniques of his uniquely elemental cuisine. At its core are clarity of taste, precision in execution, and respect for the food itself, which to Ducasse means retaining in a multitude of simple but striking techniques, such as combinng in the same recipe raw and cooked, hot and cold, fruits and vegetables. Ducasse uses as much of each element as he can--the trimmings, sometimes the skins, the shells, the baking juices, the pan drippings, the heads, the cooking broth, all the by-products of the process--in order to capture an ingredient's precise taste. He incorporates different preparations of the sam product into a given dish, each revealing an individual aspect of its flavor--sliced raw artichokes, braised whole artichokes, and paper-thin slices of fried artichoke, for example, might be featured together. The brilliance of his food--apparent in receipes made with no more than two ingredients enhanced by a simple aromatic element, with seasoning reduced to a few grains of salt--explains why he is "the country's star chef" (Wine Spectator) and "the Escoffier of our time" (Le Point).

Ducasse Flavors of France documents, in more than one hundred lavishly photographed recipes, the influences--Mediterranean, Provencal, and classical French--that permeate this extraordinary cuisine. Many of the recipes are simple, others complex, but all can be perfectly accomplished with a little time and patience.

Table of Contents
Introduction by Alain Ducasse
The Kitchens of Alain Ducasse
by Linda Dannenberg
With Aperitifs
Vegetables
Shellfish and Fish
Poultry and Meat
Desserts
Basic Recipes

About the Author
Alain Ducasse, the imaginative and exacting master of contemporary Mediterranean cuisine, is hailed internationally as the greatest chef of his generation. The son of farmers who bred geese and duck for fois gras, he is simultaneously chef of two restaurants: Michelin three-star Louis XV in Monte Carlo and three-star Alain Ducasse in Paris. He is also proprietor of La Bastide de Moustiers, his country inn, in Haute-Provence. This is his first book to be published in the United States.