Chef's Compendium of Professional Recipes, Third Edition (ISBN 0750604905)

There are much better books...:
As a professional chef and culinary educator, it would be hard for me to recommend this book. The ratios are not correct for a basic mirepoix for stock. They list 1/2# each of carrots and celery and only a 1/4# of onions...mirepoix is classicaly 1 part celery (stalk or root), 1 part carrots and 2 parts onions or leeks. A student or apprentice would be better off with The New Professional Chef or Professional Cooking. If you would like the true classic methods,Le Guide Culinaire by Escoffier is second to none.

No Nonsense Recipes:
I have recently replaced this old standard with a new, updated model. It is important to know a little about cooking and the basic French techniques before trying this book. It then becomes the most concise, precise and thorough guide to virtually anything you want to prepare. It has stood the test of time. If you agree that the single most important cookbook in your library is The Joy of Cooking then The Compendium would be number two. A great collection of most classic recipes without all the rhetoric.

A good thorough and very organized book.:
I found this book a few years back in a second hand bookstore. So far it has become one of my preferred cookbooks. It has most of the "classical" recipies. The only faults are that it leaves many techniques undescribed and that it has a rather inconsitent translation to metric measures.