OP: Le Meilleur et le Plus Simple de la Pomme de Terre
Master Chef Joël Robuchon (1945–2018 ) was widely admired for some of his innovative and highly sophisticated restaurants, but he was also recognized for his love of his mother’s simple cooking at the family home in the small city of Poitiers in southwestern France. And here, using the humble vegetable whose very name evokes simplicity, he offers us one hundred engaging recipes, highlighting the qualities of the potato rather than disguising it as something it is not.
Among his offerings are pommes en croute de sel (in a salt crust), pomme de terre au lard, an utterly plain but ravishing casserole of potatoes and bacon, pommes farcis à l'ail (stuffed with garlic), and thirteen different potato salads, all of them dangerously appealing. The book is packed with sumptuous color shots by the distinguished photographer Herve Aimard.
Sadly, Robuchon’s book, published in 1994, had too short a commercial life. It was published only in French, and was taken out of print after barely five years. Copies are now quite hard to come by. Ours—a first printing—appears unused and in Very Good plus condition with a like dust jacket.