Today American cookery is at a crossroads somewhere between technology and tradition. On the other hand we have a widespread vogue for fine traditional cookery.
French cuisine is the goal of every amateur in the kitchen.
One must do all the famous provincial dishes, and the bourgeois dishes, and now and again attempt to reconstruct some of the monuments of grande cuisine, an aspiration that often leads the novice into techniques far beyond his depth. Without question it is a delight to follow the meticulously planned trail of Julia Child or read the sublime evocations of Elizabeth David, but we should also look into the annals of our own cuisine. We have so much to complain about in the quality of food served in many restaurants and in not a few homes that we forget what distinguished food Americans have produced in several periods of our history.