Gourmet's Basic French Cookbook

Book excerpt: Even before his death a few years ago, Louis Diat of the Ritz had already become something of a gastronomic legend in the tradition of the great chefs who left behind them written records of their culinary achievements. He wrote his first book in 1941, and it was my privilege to be invited to work with him on this and on his later books, as well as on the articles he contributed to Gourmet Magazine over a twelve-year period, beginning in 1946. Gourmet's Basic French Cookbook, subtitled Techniques of French Cuisine, is the natural and fitting culmination of Monsieur Louis' lifelong career as a chef and teacher of chefs. Montmarault, the small Bourbonnais town where Louis Diat was born in 1885, lies very close to the vineyards that produce some of the finest wines in the world, and boasts as neighbors such famed centers of gastronomy as Dijon, Lyons, and Moulins. In this milieu, it was almost inevitable that every man should be a connoisseur of fine wines and fine food and every woman a good cook, and that every second young boy should aspire to become a great chef. The road to such culinary heights was not open to everyone. The boy had to have genuine talent, and he had to undergo an arduous apprenticeship at no small expense. The ambitious young Louis was fortunate; his father could afford to pay the fee for his two years' training as an apprentice at the Maison Calondre in Moulins. And that he did have genuine talent is a matter of record.