Here, from Julia Child and Simone Beck, is the sequel to the cooking classic that has inspired a whole American generation to new standards of culinary taste and artistry. On the principle that “mastering any art is a continuing process,” they continued, during the years since the publication of the now-celebrated Volume One, to search out and sample new recipes among the classic dishes and regional specialties of France—cooking, conferring, tasting, revising, perfecting. Out of their discoveries they have made, for Volume Two, a brilliant selection of precisely those recipes that will not only add to the repertory but will, above all, bring the reader to a yet higher level of mastering the art of French cooking.

This second volume enables Americans, working with American ingredients, in American kitchens, to achieve those incomparable flavors and aromas that bring up a rush of memories—of lunch at a country inn in Provence, of an evening at a great Paris restaurant, of the essential cooking of France.

Among its many treasures:

• The first authentic, successful recipe ever devised for making real French bread—the long, crunchy, yeasty, golden loaf that is like no other bread in texture and flavor—with American all-purpose flour and in an American home oven;
• Soups from the garden, chowders and bisques from the sea—including great fish stews from Provence, Normandy, and Burgundy;
• Meats from country kitchens to haute cuisine, in master recipes that demonstrate the special art of French meat cookery;
• Chickens poached(thirteen ways) and sauced;
• Vegetables alluringly combined and restored to a place of honor on the menu;
• A lavish array of desserts, from the deceptively simple to the absolutely splendid.