<P> Some classic French baking is also included, but baking received a more thorough treatment in Volume 2, published in 1970 . </P> <P> Volume 1 of Mastering the Art of French Cooking received overwhelmingly positive reviews when it was first released in 1961 . In the New York Times, Craig Claiborne wrote that the recipes in the book "are glorious, whether they are for a simple egg in aspic or for a fish souffle," and that it "is not a book for those with a superficial interest in food...but for those who take a fundamental delight in the pleasures of cuisine ." Michael Field, writing for the New York Review of Books, praised Beck, Bertholle, and Child for "not limiting themselves to la haute cuisine," and stated that "for once, the architectural structure of the French cuisine is firmly and precisely outlined in American terms ." Field's sole criticism of the book was that the authors suggested dry vermouth as a substitute for white wine, as he felt the domestic vermouth available to American home cooks, the book's target audience, was "bland and characterless ." Despite being a relatively expensive cookbook, retailing for $10 in 1965, Mastering the Art of French Cooking Volume 1 did well commercially, selling over 100,000 copies in less than five years . According to Julia Child biographer Noel Riley Fitch, the publication of Mastering the Art of French Cooking instantaneously changed the entire American cookbook industry, leading more cookbook publishers to place emphasis on clarity and precision, and away from the "chatty and sometimes sketchy" style that had typified American cookbooks . </P> <P> On its release in 1970, Volume 2 was also well - received . Critics praised the book's comprehensiveness, but some felt that it was far too ambitious for the average home cook . Gael Greene, reviewing the book for Life, wrote that Volume 2 was "a classic continued," and made the contents of Volume 1 look like "mud - pie stuff," while Raymond Sokolov wrote that "it is without rival, the finest gourmet cookbook for the non-chef in the history of American stomachs ." The New York Times' review was mixed, with critic Nika Hazelton praising the book for being "elegant and accurate," but criticized it for being too interested in minutia and theory to be useful for the home cook . Learning French cooking from Mastering the Art of French Cooking, she wrote, would be akin to "learning to drive a car by having the workings of the internal combustion engine described in full detail ." Similarly, Nancy Ross of the Washington Post Times Herald argued that many of the recipes in Volume 2 would be far too time consuming, difficult, and expensive for the American home cook, pointing out that the recipe for French bread provided in the book was nineteen pages long, took seven hours to complete, and required the use of "a brick and a sheet of asbestos cement ." </P> <P> The 2009 film, Julie & Julia, based on Child's memoir My Life in France and Julie Powell's memoir Julie and Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously . The success of this film, combined with a tied - in reissue of the 40th Anniversary edition, caused it to once again become a bestseller in the United States, 48 years after its initial release . </P>

Julia child cookbook mastering the art of french cooking