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L'Astrance Cook Book

robert.c.brown15

Hello All,

First off, sorry if this is in the wrong category. Wasn't sure where to put it. I am new here to these boards.

I was wondering and hoping some of you could shed some light on the L'Astrance cookbook. I have been seeking some information on it as I am interested in purchasing it. For some background, I have been cooking from The French Laundry cookbook weekly over the course of the past few months and greatly enjoying it. I am interested in finding a cookbook that may act as the next logical "step" towards cooking modern french cuisine. Alinea is just too involved for me right now and I checked out Eleven Madison Park at the library and it doesn't feel like something I am interested in from a cooking stand point. A ton of individual ingredients and a few too many equipment constraints.

I appreciate your help and look forward to hearing what you have to say about L'Astrance or recommending to me another modern french cookbook!

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Chris_Young_80640

@Robert_Brown — The L'Astrance book is great, and beautiful. Grant used to cook with Pascal, so it's natural that we're huge fans. BUt you won't be disappointed.

Chris

grant

Its very solid on some rare techniques and great purees/condiments. I love it.

A_L_Esterling_35269

@Robert_Brown — found some nice dishes using Fourme d'Ambert from Pascal Barbot and others: http://www.fourme-ambert.com/sites/all/files/FOURME_livretRecettes40ans_BDmini.pdf
L’Astrance book is gorgeous and the step-by-step book is a nice addition: http://store.chefsteps.com/collections/cookbooks-we-love/products/astrance-a-cooks-book

robert.c.brown15

Wow! Finally! Some people who know about it. It has been hard tracking down people who had any good information on it.

I knew there was a supplement and I know it contains step by step pictures for a few dishes. Is it only a few? Or a good amount? 20?

Is this a book that a serious home cook could work from, with alterations here or there or extracting aspects of dishes? I do not have a ton of moleculary gastronomy equipment (actually, basically none) but I'd like to start. Like I said Alinea is way too over the top for me right now, but would this be a nice middle ground of Alinea and Eleven Madison Park/The French Laundry?

Last thing. Is it heavy in the asian ingredients/influence? I know the restaurant seems to use asian influences, wasn't sure about the cook book. Not saying that is a good or bad thing, but I am really looking for some modern french dishes/techniques.

Thank you so much @Chris_Young, @Grant_Lee_Crilly, and @A._L._Esterling for your help!

Chris_Young_80640

I think it's a pretty usable book. And the supplement covered a much larger number of dishes than I expected. I think it's one of the best recent cookbooks for enthusiastic cooks and chefs.

robert.c.brown15

Great! Excited to hear that. Essential Cuisine by Michel Bras just came in the mail so between that and L'Astrance I have some great cook books to keep me occupied in the kitchen!

ren_74229

I agree with the group. I think it's a wonderful book...Personally, I think the writing is sort of terrible, but that's not really a knock since in the continuum of contemporary restaurant cookbooks I think it's nice to see someone make a real "French" cookbook again(vs. the Phaidon style that has taken over recently). Barbot definitely has a voice, both in his cooking and in the book...and there's plenty of insight if you're willing to read closely. And his food's delicious...so there's always that!

Especially if you're coming from a TFL, Alinea, EMP perspective, I think it's super helpful to get the diversity that you'd find in Astrance (or even Passard's books). Actually, I'd definitely recommend the Passard books for you, especially as you feel that Alinea and EMP are not what you're looking for. More literary than strictly didactic, but if you want living, contemporary, French cuisine...there are few better books than Passard's and Barbot's.

robert.c.brown15

So @ren would you highly recommend Passard's The Art of Cooking Vegetables? I have been wanting to do more vegetable dishes as it is so that may be what I'm looking for too. I have a birthday coming up, hence my interest in acquiring a few more cook books.

Passard's book never interested me that much until now too because of the amazon ratings (3 out of 5). Not that I live and die by them, but they tend to be helpful when it comes to me spending money on books I can't hold and check out.

What other Passard books should I check out? I have not done much research into what he's released? I think he has that encylopedia? But I'm not really looking for something that massive.

Thank you so much!!!

ren_74229

@Robert Brown

The Amazon ratings reflect what I talked about. The Passard vegetable book is totally useless for someone who wants to learn a modern new technique, needs a hi-resolution photo of the final dish, and wants to be told the exact reasoning for everything in the dish. It is the exact opposite of something like America's Test Kitchen or even say Richard Blais's book. However, if you read it more like a work of literature, you can start to see how Passard thinks and actually gain an understanding of his cooking. It asks more of you as a cook/reader, but I think it's worth the effort.

Similarly, his comic book, "In the Kitchen with Alain Passard" looks weird at first...it's a comic book. But, it is super full of insight into how to think about cooking...kind of in the way that people talk about Marco Pierre White's "White Heat."

Both books...a first read through might only take 30-min to 1hr. But like the best written words, what you get from it depends on how much time you spend with it. The Astrance book is actually a nice balance of the explicit and the implicit...it's got the pretty visuals and the step-by-step, but the writing also veers towards his philosophies.

As an easy intro to Passard check out the video series here:

http://www.lepoint.fr/invites-du-point/alain-passard/

He may not use the modernist techniques that we come here for, but the way he does things is no less brilliant or useful. Spend some time with him and you'll see why he's the yoda of this cooking game.

robert.c.brown15

Thanks so much @ren! You were a huge help! Really can't wait to purchase those Passard books and l'astrance. They are definitely going to help me grow as a home cook.

By the way @ren, @Chris_Young, @Grant_Lee_Crilly, as someone who hasn't really explored modernist cuisine, is there a major modernist french cookbook out there? Or does it reach a point where modernist cooking is just cooking and it has its roots in french and various cuisines. Is Alinea French? Is The Fat Duck? elBulli was a Spanish restaurant so I'd assume it isn't considered French. Modernist Cuisine (and at home) I guess has its culinary roots in France among other places. Is l'astrance the first modernist french restaurant to release a cookbook? Am I missing something or am I also dealing in huge generalities/vagueness.

Thought I'd ask since I'm enjoying how this discussion is going. Thank you! I'm loving this forum and website!

Lennard__34626

Fwiw I've never read the passard cookbook but I can attest that his food is the best French food I've ever tasted

ren_74229

The history of "Modernist" cooking is actually kind of a convoluted one...and one with multiple points of view and "origins." On the other hand, it's also something subject to popular interpretation and perception.

Really it all depends on how you see things, and what you want to dig into. The first book of Modernist Cuisine tells the story quite well, so feel free to read up on it.

But for your specific set of questions, here are my answers as direct as I can make them:

is there a major modernist french cookbook out there? - If I'm reading into your question accurately, I'd answer that there are quite a few. Pierre Gagnaire, Yannick Alleno...even Herve This..and I'm sure quite a few others. You could call Thomas Keller's Under Pressure a modernist French cookbook. Michel Bras's cookbooks pre-date the Modernist culinary movement as we know it, yet you'll be hard pressed to find a Modernist Chef who hasn't taken something from him. Barbot's book is definitely not the first...but it is one of the most recent. Even then, I woudn't be surprised if Barbot doesn't consider himself "Modernist"

Like chefs, cultures and haute cuisine kitchens are always difficult to put into easy boxes. That said, I'd consider Alinea, American, The Fat Duck, British, and el Bulli Spanish. The French Laundry is clearly French...but it is every bit American. Regardless, every single one of those chefs has spent a considerable amount of their lives cooking French. Even Rene Redzepi has spent a good part of his cooking life cooking French though he has distanced his cuisine from it as far as he possibly can. Complicating matters, is that in today's kitchens, if you're a world class restaurant, you're very likely to have cooks of every nationality in your kitchen. So, as time goes on, labels tend to fit less well.

Given this relationship, there will always be links to French cuisine especially in western haute cuisine. But in a larger context, there are few (no?) cuisines on earth that have remained static and immune from outside influence. So, depending on our personal viewpoint, the French may be the origin of many things...for others the Chinese actually "invented" everything...from another viewpoint perhaps the middle-east is the place to look. Looking at a specific food and trying to trace its origins and where it has traveled is a challenging, but super fun game.

Just as food cultures are seldom black and white, same goes for modernist cuisine. Contemporary restaurants aren't just "Modernist" or not. Some may pick sides very clearly, but many more flow somewhere in-between.

robert.c.brown15

Awesome answer. Made my night. Thanks so much for the education. Truly appreciate it.

Chris_Young_80640

What @Ren said.

Jack_Mayer_85396

Fascinating thread! Thanks to all who have shared. Is the Astrance book sold here the paperback version?

A_L_Esterling_35269

Yes, @Jack_Mayer. The version we have specified in the ChefSteps store is the deluxe paperback version that comes with the additional step-by-step book in a nice slipcase.

Jack_Mayer_85396

@A.L._Easterling - thanks for the info. I'm moving this book up my wist list. Any thoughts on the purchase order among: Heston B at Home, L'Astrance, The Fat Duck, Eleven Madison Park, others ... I have all the Keller books, MC and MC@H, Volt, Ink, Happy in the Kitchen. Thanks.

Matthew_Snyder_68770

I'm always going to recommend The Fat Duck book ahead of most others, simply because the food and cooking science material in final third of that volume is very much like the beta test version of Modernist Cuisine. And that's true both in the actual material and the way it's presented with wonderful and creative photography. (As dense and thorough as it is, it still only hints at what was to come a few years later with MC.)

I'm also partial to Volt, Ink because it's the only book on the list featuring a chef whose food I've eaten. So there.

robert.c.brown15

So I did get the L'astrance cookbook and have had it for a few weeks now. Haven't had a ton of time to read through it as school has started, but there are some amazing things. It is not what I expected at all. Very few recipes in terms of showing a plated dish and then breaking down all of the components (i.e. EMP) but I am really enjoying Barbot's voice in his writing and every once in awhile he does give enough through his writing to be able to figure out how to re-create some of the components. It is frustrating though seeing certain items on a plate and wanting to recreate them but getting no guidance as to how it is created. I think L'astrance is definitely going to be a book I learn a lot from by just sitting down and reading it, compared to trying out recipes (not that I won't do that too, but a lot of the ingredients are difficult to find as he uses a lot of asian ingredients and region specific items).

I got the Passard vegetable book and the graphic novel. I read the graphic novel immediately and really enjoyed it! What great insight and of course the techniques hidden in it. The vegetable book is great but haven't gotten around to cooking from it yet. Just reading through and looking at the images. I think this weekend I am going to do two dishes. Passard loves beets!

A few days ago, after having some leftover bday money and a paycheck coming in, I ordered Eleven Madison Park and it arrived today. I cannot believe I hesitated this long to purchase it. My memory was pretty poor because this book is no where near as complex as I thought it was. Just the back of the book is worth paying full price for. The gels, purees, and oils are amazing and that kind of stuff really excites me when I cook. Being able to introduce flavors through different textures is so incredible. I am loving EMP and will probably try to do some components in the next week or so (also buying a sous vide soon so then I'm really going to do a bunch of stuff).

Anyway, wanted to come back and thank you all for your help when it came to me purchasing these books!

If I had one question, because I don't believe in posting on a forum without asking a question;), it would be - what is the best way to approach the L'astrance cook book? I don't want to say I'm disappointed by it, but I was just not expecting it to be so much narrative and not so much technique/recipes. Not that I strictly looking for recipes on end, but finding time to read through all of it is hard to do right now.

So, what is the best course of action in getting the most out of L'astrance? Thanks again and look forward to hearing from you all!