Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume 2 by Julia Child & Simone Beck Review: An Essential, Ambitious Sequel for Serious Home Cooks

Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume 2 is the second and final volume in the two-volume French cookbook series written for the American market and published by Alfred A. Knopf — Volume 1 in 1961, Volume 2 on October 12, 1970. Volume 2 was authored by Julia Child and Simone Beck; Louisette Bertholle, who co-wrote Volume 1, did not participate in this volume. Illustrations are by Sidonie Coryn. The book is organised around the guiding principle, quoted in the publisher's description, that "mastering any art is a continuing process" — meaning Volume 2 is explicitly designed to build on the foundation laid by its predecessor, advancing the home cook's skills rather than revisiting the same ground. Its range is deliberately wide, moving from the everyday (French bread) to the elaborate (royal Napoleons), from rustic peasant ragoûts to salted goose.

The series to which this volume belongs occupies an outsized position in American food culture. According to Julia Child biographer Noel Riley Fitch, the publication of the first volume of Mastering the Art of French Cooking instantaneously changed the entire American cookbook industry, pushing publishers toward clarity and precision and away from what Fitch describes as the "chatty and sometimes sketchy" style that had typified American cookbooks up to that point. Volume 2, released nine years later to capitalise on that legacy, was also well received on its release in 1970, with critics praising the book's comprehensiveness. Alice Waters, as quoted in the publisher's materials, credited Child with having "paved the way for Chez Panisse and so many others by demystifying French food and by reconnecting pleasure and delight with cooking and eating at the table."

The recipes in Volume 2 are written — as the publisher's description states — with "the same detail, exactness, and clarity that are the soul of Mastering the Art of French Cooking." The step-by-step instructional format that distinguished Volume 1 carries through here, with Child and Beck designing each recipe to walk a motivated American home cook through techniques that might otherwise seem inaccessible. The scope is broader and the techniques more advanced than in Volume 1: the book is explicitly positioned as a progression, not a companion at the same difficulty level. Readers who worked through Volume 1 will find familiar structural logic — thorough introductions, precise quantities, and technique explanations — applied to a new and more demanding set of dishes.

Two limitations are worth naming plainly. First, because Volume 2 is designed as a continuation of Volume 1, readers who come to it without that prior foundation may find the learning curve steeper than expected; the book assumes a baseline familiarity with the methods and vocabulary established in the earlier volume. Second, the cookbook was written in 1970 for an audience with access to mid-century American supermarkets, and some ingredients or equipment it takes for granted have since shifted in availability or terminology. These are not fatal flaws — the book remains widely used — but they are practical considerations for a cook approaching it fresh today.

Volume 2 rewards the committed, curious home cook who has already developed confidence with foundational French technique and wants to go further. It is not a quick-reference weeknight resource; its value lies in depth, ambition, and the sustained instruction that Child and Beck bring to complex preparations spanning bread, charcuterie, braises, and elaborate pastries. For readers already invested in the series — or in the tradition of serious, technique-forward French home cooking that the series helped define — Volume 2 represents the natural and logical culmination of that journey.