As a former professionally-trained French chef, I distrust all cook books. In fact, I have said on more than one occasion in both food articles I’ve written and in cooking lectures I’ve given … that all cookbooks pretty much lie. Oh, do they lie. Lie, lie, lie, lie, lie.... Larousse Gastronomique, however, is not a cookbook. It is an encyclopedia of culinary wonder, sure to intimidate and weed out the foodie weak, the dabblers, the spineless chef wannabes. Much like Auguste Escoffier’s Ma Cuisine ...do not attempt recipes within unless (A) you’ve spent some serious hours suffering under the cruel savagery of French chefs or (B) you’ve jacked into the Matrix mainframe and downloaded an honors program in classic French technique. Just hundreds of pages of viciously opinionated, ancient assemblage. Fun reading, really. Case in point…page 670, "Mou de Porc en Ragout" “...beat the lungs to expel all air from them and cut into small (40 to 50 gram) pieces…” Yeah, that’s right, sportsfans… pig lungs. My guess is you won’t be seeing the latest miss perky on the Food Network slamming a hammer on porky’s lights anytime soon.