The single best book for classical cooking is Pelliprat's large, illustrated text, published under a variety of names.
That having been said -- making mother sauces, especially the stock based sauces, then making the sauces that are several generations down is an extremely time-consuming and expensive proposition and not appropriate for every restaurant.
For instance, the "classic" demi-glace starts with Espagnole. Espagnole tastes like s**t on its own, and does more than get you half way to an intermediate sauce. Do you really want to go there? Modern interpretations skip the Espagnole, start with stock, and just reduce away -- not only modern, but far less expensive, and probably how your chef does it anyway. In the meantime you need to check out Julia Childs on "semi-demi-glace."
In terms of modern restaurant practice a lot of this stuff is highly theoretical and impractical anyway. If you want to learn how to cook the sort of food that was popular in pre WWII France, your education is incomplete without an exploration of "classical" cuisine. But be aware you're spending a lot of time to learn a bunch of stuff (which I learned and can do), but you'll never use. Besides, a lot of that stuff is not what people want to eat anymore. Nouvelle and California Cuisines taught us to simplify, a lesson that shouldn't be lost.
Plus, of the five meres, you and/or your chef probably already have a solid grounding in four of them: bechamel, veloute, hollandaise/mayonnaise, and tomate. If you're interested in the elaborations, well they're only elaborations. You can do it with a recipe, you don't need a lot of class work. That leaves espagnole. Skip it and learn the semi-demi glace. You'll nail it on the fourth try at the latest.
All of this presumes you know how to use a "French wire" whisk, how to add butter for structure, how to pay attention, and when to use arrowroot instead of corn starch. The rest is mostly just stock and recipes.
BTW, I agree with the "flour" proposition and raise to a whole bunch of thickening agents -- including corn starch, arrowroot, butter, oil, egg, potato starch, tomato paste, and so on. .
BDL  |