"Known as the Dean of American Cooking, James Beard set a standard of culinary excellence that's still a benchmark today. He was an early television presence who helped shape what America ate in restaurants and cooked at home, and was both an innovative recipe writer and a scholar of American foodways, preserving classic dishes from the past for his readers to cook in the present. Compiled from twelve of his classic books and freshened for a modern audience, The Essential James Beard will stand with definitive and lively cookbooks such as The New York Times Cookbook and The Joy of Cooking. It covers the best and most necessary recipes in every category: appetizers and hors d'oeuvres, soups, pastas and noodles, fish and shellfish, meat and game, rice, potatoes and stuffings, breads, desserts, and more"--