On moving to Britain in the late 1990's Pascal opened up his award winning restaurant Club Gascon in London's Smithfield Market. Rapidly acquiring a Michelin star, Club Gascon fast became the place to go to experience some of the best French food in the country - the food of his native South West of France, the very heart of the country's cuisine. Over 100 traditional recipes, some with modern twists and inflections, sit within a sumptuously designed and beautifully photographed book. Unashamedly sensuous food photography is accompanied by evocative images of Gascony, it's food and people, from fellow Frenchman Jean Cazals. Cuisinier Gascon is a food lover's delight and a cook's heaven - a worthy testament to the talents of both Pascal Aussignac and his native land of Gascony. 2009 World Gourmand Award: 'Best French Cookbook in UK' 2010 World Gourmand Award: 'Second Best French Cookbook in the World' Prix La Mazille 2010 First Prize in Perigueux (France) at The International Book Fair

In the eighteenth-century French household, the servant cook held a special place of importance, providing daily meals and managing the kitchen and its finances. In this scrupulously researched and witty history, Sean Takats examines the lives of these cooks as they sought to improve their position in society and reinvent themselves as expert, skilled professionals. Much has been written about the cuisine of the period, but Takats takes readers down into the kitchen and introduces them to the men and women behind the food. It is only in that way, Takats argues, that we can fully recover the scientific and cultural significance of the meals they created, and, more important, the contributions of ordinary workers to eighteenth-century intellectual life. He shows how cooks, along with decorators, architects, and fashion merchants, drove France’s consumer revolution, and how cooks' knowledge about a healthy diet and the medicinal properties of food advanced their professional status by capitalizing on the Enlightenment’s new concern for bodily and material happiness. The Expert Cook in Enlightenment France explores a unique intersection of cultural history, labor history, and the history of science and medicine. Relying on an unprecedented range of sources, from printed cookbooks and medical texts to building plans and commercial advertisements, Takats reconstructs the evolving role of the cook in Enlightenment France. Academics and students alike will enjoy this fascinating study of the invention of the professional chef, of how ordinary workers influenced emerging trends of scientific knowledge, culture-creation, and taste in eighteenth-century France.

Arguing against pretentious restaurants, Flandrin argues that such changes in the food service are far from distinct events. Instead he regards it as a historical phenomenon, one that changed in response to socioeconomic and cultural factors.

Wheaton effortlessly brings to life the history of the French kitchen and table. In this masterful and charming book, food historian Barbara Ketcham Wheaton takes the reader on a cultural and gastronomical tour of France, from its medieval age to the pre-Revolutionary era using a delightful combination of personal correspondence, historical anecdotes, and journal entries.

The English have always regarded the French with a passionate mixture of love and hatred. Simultaneously divided and linked by the English Channel - or la Manche - both countries continue profoundly to affect the other for good or ill. In his delightfully impressionistic appreciation of Britain's closest neighbour, first published in 1987, 'unashamed Francophile' Christopher Sinclair-Stevenson separates cliché from fallacy to reveal the essence of France and the French. 'A book which will have a considerable appeal for all those who love France; for in Christopher Sinclair-Stevenson they will meet a kindred spirit...' Financial Times 'Whets the reader's appetite for the next visit across the Channel.' Evening Standard 'Urbane and charming.' Times