Many chefs and foodies consider Larousse Gastronomique the definitive compendium of the many mouthwatering aspects of French cuisine. It includes recipes, ingredients and cooking techniques. It must have many yummy things mentioned in it, like full cream milk and European butter. Oh, heaven.
I love reading cookbooks. I’ll sometimes pick one out to read in bed when I can’t sleep. (Hence, my level of insomnia is often directly related to the height of the stack of cookbooks beside my bed.) The language of food is just so…deliciously satisfying. And there’s nothing like images of a ruby-red strawberry being dipped in dark melted chocolate or a simple sugar glaze falling gracefully over the sides of a lemon pound cake to lull you to sweet slumber.
I’ve never read the Larousse myself, but I am happily imagining drifting off to sleep with it and delectable macaron dreams.
On a somewhat disturbing, but admittedly interesting, note about the Larousse. Hannibal of Silence Of The Lambs fame uses the book in his own, er, culinary explorations. This is actually how I came to know about the book myself—as a fan of the Thomas Harris novels. The book leads to his downfall in Red Dragon; I will not mention which specific entry in the book, lest you change your mind about it. Haha.
The Larousse is now on my birthday wish list.:)
EDIT: Mama reminded me today of the often-told anecdote about how one day when I was three years old, she suddenly noticed how quiet the house was; I was usually noisy. She found me in a corner with a magazine, pretending to grab pictures of food from the pagaes and making the motions of shoving them into my mouth and chewing them. All she heard was me going, "Nyam! Nyam! Nyaaaaahhhmmm!" and saw me hunched over the magazine, pretend-munching the afternoon away. I guess I started early!
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