30 DAYS OPEN PURCHASELe Cordon Bleu began as a subscription benefit. In 1895, journalist Marthe Distel gave readers of her magazine La Cuisinière Cordon Bleu the opportunity to attend lessons with some of France’s finest chefs, and the first was held in the kitchens of the Palais Royal in Paris. When she died, she left the school to an orphanage.
The name comes from the blue silk ribbon worn by the knights of the Order of the Holy Spirit, an order of chivalry whose banquets became so famous that by the 19th century cordon bleu had already come to mean masterful cooking. Its students include Julia Child, who went on to teach Americans how to cook French food. Today the school has around 35 institutes in 20 countries.
The seven volumes are the school’s curriculum in book form. Stocks, sauces and soups, eggs and dairy, fish and seafood, meat, poultry and game, vegetables, grains and pulses, pastry and baking, and finally a handbook covering equipment, French professional terminology and an index to the complete work. Altogether, more than 770 recipes across 1,716 pages.
The techniques are shown step by step in photographs, from trimming an artichoke and filleting a fish to making mayonnaise and laminating puff pastry. The foreword is written by André Cointreau, who took over the school in 1984.
It is the same foundation taught to professional chefs in classrooms around the world, collected in seven volumes.
Format: Hardback, seven volumes in slipcase
Number of pages: 1,716
Number of recipes: Over 770
Foreword: André Cointreau
Publisher: Phaidon
ISBN: 9781838661205
Language: English
First published: 6 November 2026
