Willan - La Varenne Pratique: Part 1, The Basics

Copyright 2013 Anne Willan, Inc.

Print copyright @ 1989 Anne Willan

www.lavarenne.com

All rights reserved. Published by Anne Willan, Inc.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher.

For information regarding permission, write to:
Anne Willan, Inc.
P.O. Box 5180
Santa Monica, CA 90409-5180

v2013.1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Available
Willan, Anne
La VarennePratique/by Anne Willan
ISBN 978-0-9911346-0-1 (ebook)

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

For the conception and planning of La Varenne Pratique Anne Willan would like to thank Jonathan Clowes and Jill Norman.

The contribution of those listed below is recorded with appreciation.
Chief editor: Amanda Phillips Manheim
Consultant editors: Mark Cherniavsky, Henry Grossi, Barbara Wheaton
Contributing author: Barbara Kafka
Techniques demonstrated by: Chef Claude Vauguet, Director of cuisine at Ecole de Cuisine La Varenne, Paris and Burgundy, assisted by Pastry Chef Laurent Terrasson.
Assistant editors: Laura Garrett, Martha Holmberg
Nutritional consultant: Carol Gvozdich.
Recipe testing and development: Henry Grossi, Randall Price
Technique photography by Jerry Young
Recipe photography by Martin Brigdale
Dishes prepared by Jane Suthering
Art directed by Jacquie Gulliver
Project editor: Emma Johnson
Senior editor: Anderley Moore
Managing editor: Victoria Davenport
Consultant editors: Jill Norman, Jane Grigson
American editor: Erica Marcus
Jacket design: Nancy Kenmore
Production: Eunice Paterson, Henrietta Winthrop

For researching and drafting the following chapters Anne Willan owes a special debt to the following contributors:
Henry Grossi: Soups and Stocks, Pasta, Herbs, Spices and Flavorings,Kitchen Equipment.
Faye Levy: Sugar and Chocolate, Fats and Oils.
Amanda Phillips Manheim: Vegetables, Fruits and Nuts, Grains and Legumes.
Steve Raichlen: Flours, Breads and Batters.
Lynn Stallworth and Martha Holmberg: Preserving and Freezing

Anne Willan would also like to acknowledge expert review and guidance
from Geoff Palmer (plant science) and Jon Rowley (fish)
from Shirley Corriher, Elisabeth Evans, Judith Hill and Susan Stuck

Sources of technical or commercial information consulted in the USA include: American Meat Institute; California Sunshine Fine Foods; Fisheries Development Foundations; Fleischmanns Yeast; Flying Food; Friedas Finest; Lundberg Family Farms; National Meat and Livestock Board; Rodale Institute; South Mills Mushrooms Sales; The Sugar Institute; United Dairy Industry Association; United Fresh Fruit and Vegetables Association; United States Department of Commerce, Office of Fisheries; University of Maryland, Department of Horticulture; Paradise Bay Co., Washington for supplying fresh salmon. In Britain, special acknowledgement is due to Department of Zoology, British Museum (Natural History) for expert help and advice; Elizabeth David Cookshop, Covent Garden, for supplying kitchen equipment; The Mushroom Growers Association.

Digital Foreword

In the print editionof La Varenne Pratique, I wrote, Modern technology, has in effect,transformed how we stock our kitchen and how we handle and prepare food. Some 20years later, modern technology has transformed the way we consume cookbooks. Theoriginal La Varenne Pratique, despite selling more than 500,000 copiesworldwide, went out of print. With the original harder to find and more expensive tobuy, I felt the time was right to create an eBook edition to make La VarennePratique affordable and accessible once again.

This eBook is a digital reproduction of the original, created byscanning in every one of the book's 500-plus pages. Digitizing this complicated bookwas not without challenges. If a page does not format as you would expect, wesuggest that you change the font, font size, or page orientation. The eBooks imagescan be enlarged, though they cannot be magnified beyond a certain point, as theimages are scans from the original printed book, not high-resolution digitalphotographs. That said, the images themselves are larger, and easier to study, thanthose in the original print edition.

We decided to divide the book into four parts to make it easier forreaders to digest. Now you can download only the part of greatest interest or all ofthem as you see fit. To the devotees of the print edition, dont worry: nothing ismissing! Every image and every accent has made it safely across the digital divide.We dropped the index as the search function puts a static index to shame. You canquickly find any term, technique, word or phrase at the push of a button.

While we have sliced, diced and digitized the original to fit moderntimes, this eBook edition of La Varenne Pratique still celebrates the pleasures ofthe table inside and outside the kitchen just as before. To everyone who hascherished the print edition and to those who are just discovering the digital one, Iagain say, bon appetit!

ANNE WILLAN

Santa Monica, California 2013

Preface

In the past 30 years I have had the good fortune to work in food and in cooking in three different countriesFrance, Great Britain and the United States. This book is the distillation of that experience. It is also the fruit of almost continuous writing and research, much of it associated with La Varenne, the cooking school which I founded in Paris in 1975.

As its name implies, La Varenne Pratique is a book for the practicing cook. The point of departure is that mastery of ingredients is as important to success in the kitchen as mastery of technique. In each chapter, therefore, we consider carefully how to choose ingredients, how to store them, and indeed how to identify them in the first place. Modern technology has, in effect, transformed how we stock our kitchen and how we handle and prepare our food.

Allied with good ingredients must be a knowledge of technique, and it is here that French skill comes into play. The action photographs in this book were shot with French chefs in the heart of France, yet the techniques they demonstrate have universal application, covering such basics as chopping an onion, as well as the complexities of boning a rabbit and tempering chocolate. The principles of cooking apply equally to English roast beef and to a Texas barbecue.