Best general cooking guide

What is the best general cookbook, I'm thinking of Larousse Gastronomique. What would you choose?

who gives a fuck

In case, what, you suddenly forget how to cook all of a sudden?

Herings dictionary

Are you fucking retarded?

Larousse Gastronomique isn't a cookbook, it's an encyclopaedia of food which is good as a reference guide for new or strange ingredients, which just happens to contain recipes.

I'm reading through Fergus Henderson's Nose To Tail Eating, I'd highly recommend it. It has a very interesting ethos around meat consumption and has a much better approach to food in general than most cookbooks I've come across.

Thanks user, I'll have a look

Google is pretty good

>Google coq au vin
>get 10 mom blogs saying to use boneless/skinless chicken breasts
no user

Yeah but those are easy to discard if you have any sense whatsoever. But you're right, you do have to have at least some idea about cooking to know how to spot utter frauds so it might not be the best thing for a complete novice.

For classic dishes and inspo I usually check Escoffier

>Mom blogs
>"You can substitute the wine for grape juice if you want"

That's what I mean, Google is fine to begin with, but I want a deeper understanding

Escoffier is old and busted. Bocuse is where it at now.

google is attrocious for cooking. Literally all recipes are hidden under pages of sponsored aggregator "cooking enthusiast" sites that just collect mom shit and fad shit without any quality control (an no, when it comes to food, user stars don't mean shit)

>Bocuse is where it at now.
I've skimmed though this and often I found the pictures to be useless and distracting

And the recipes at the very end are nice for chefs but not for the average home cook in my opinion

>not for the average home cook in my opinion
Do you think Escoffier was meant for the home cook? I don't see either being meant for average home cooks.

>mom blogs
>awlays on a "diet" so they make "true-fake" desserts
>still get 3/4 of the calories AND it's disgusting
fuck this shit

I wish there was a search feature that filters out any recipe written by a mom.

Joy of Cooking
Modernist Cuisine
Flavor Bible

there, someone had to say it

Seconding Joy of Cooking

Super useful reference for staples and techniques. Sure there are more detailed books out there but I don't really see why a home cook needs much more than this to cover basics.