Institut Paul Bocuse Gastronomique

The Institut Paul Bocuse, a culinary school based near Lyon, France, celebrates its 25th anniversary by releasing a expensive mammoth compendium. It is essentially two books in one: a 500-page guide to preparing and understanding a vast array of ingredients—including puff pastries, dried white beans, and a saddle of rabbit—followed by 150 pages of offbeat recipes. The book instructions on the butchering of ducks, the deveining of foie gras, and the poaching of lamb brains. Instructions are presented with minimal text and copious step-by-step photos, some more helpful than others. Numerous images of a pot being stirred, for example, add more heft than value. There are also overblown examinations of basic foodstuffs; it’s interesting to learn that the British prefer brown eggs and the French like their shells “somewhere between ivory and linen,” but there is no surprise in being told that “omelettes and scrambling are the two main ways of cooking eggs that have been removed from their shells and the white and yolk combined.” Unfortunately, there are very few instructional photos where they are needed the most, within the 70 recipes. Elaborate concoctions such as the tuna-chocolate drop, an assemblage of bluefin, white chocolate, and ginger broth housed inside a hollowed-out teardrop of ice, would be much less daunting with a photo or two. (Nov.)