Haute Cuisine: How the French Invented the Culinary Profession

"Paris is the culinary centre of the world. All the great missionaries of good cookery have gone forth from it, and its cuisine was, is, and ever will be the supreme expression of one of the greatest arts of the world," observed the English author of The Gourmet Guide to Europe in 1903. Even today, a sophisticated meal, expertly prepared and elegantly served, must almost by definition be French.

For a century and a half, fine dining the world over has meant French dishes and, above all, Fren...