Reddit reviews Sauces: Classical and Contemporary Sauce Making, Fourth Edition

This is the English language sauce bible, a fantastic and an illuminating read, covering both historical and contemporary sauces. You can probably find a used copy of the 2008 version cheap, and I hear it's also on some torrent sites. That version will have less information on non-Western sauces, though it does cover them.

I feel sheepish because I answered one of those "I need to learn sauces" posts the other day...and talked about the mother sauces and recommended the ultimate sauce book which I use all the time.

Here you go

Yep. I bought some books and taught myself.

Buy all the earliest books by James Peterson like Sauces . He has one called Soups that is really good, and some others that look good but I haven’t looked at myself.

These James Peterson books are really textbooks on how to cook. He has some later ones that are just glossy pictures and recipes, like normal cook books. You don’t want those. You want the ones that really teach you what you’re doing.

You will learn to cook in no time. Better than your mom. Screw her.

Edit: I have really early editions of the early books. I don’t know if some editor has glossied-up the newer editions, but if in doubt just buy old editions used. They are worth it.