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Gastronomie Pratique
- Year
- 1907
- Era
- 20th century
- Origin
- France · Europe
- Language
- French
- Category
- French foundational
Gastronomie Pratique, issued in Paris in 1907 under the pseudonym Ali-Bab, is an encyclopaedic French treatise on cookery compiled by the mining engineer Henri Babinski. Combining systematic recipes with discursive essays on digestion, menus, and the history of the table, it ran through numerous expanded editions across the early twentieth century and became a touchstone reference for serious amateurs alongside the professional manuals of Escoffier.
Cooking from this book
Bouillabaisse
Signature dishAmong the many dishes treated with engineer's precision in Ali-Bab's monumental volume, the Provençal bouillabaisse stands out as emblematic. A robust fisherman's stew of Mediterranean rockfish perfumed with saffron, fennel, garlic and olive oil, it is traditionally served in two stages, the broth poured over bread and the fish presented alongside. Babinski's exhaustive attention to regional French cookery, and his insistence on technical exactitude, made his treatment of such classics a benchmark for serious cooks throughout the twentieth century.
An editorial note on a dish associated with this book, written for The Coquinist. It is not a reproduction of the book's recipe.
