Professional cooking vs The Professional Chef: Which Should You Read?
Both live on shelves: Food service, Quantity cookery, Quantity cooking, Cooking
Professional cooking
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Includes recipes from Le Cordon Bleu cooking school, nutritional analyses, safety information, a glossary of cooking terms, and American, British, and French culinary vocabulary.
The Professional Chef
“The first restaurant (as we know restaurants today) opened in Paris in 1765, when M. Boulanger, a tarvern keeper, served a dish of sheep's feet, or trotters, in a white sauce as a restorative.”
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"Named one of the five favorite culinary books of this decade by Food Arts magazine, The Professional Chef is the classic kitchen reference that many of America's top chefs have used to understand basic skills and…
Side by side
The verdict
- Ratings are close across the board — any is a safe pick by score.
- Professional cooking is the quickest read — about 15 hours vs 22 for The Professional Chef.
- Professional cooking has the widest readership — 549 ratings behind its score.
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How to choose
Scores by source
| Professional cooking | The Professional Chef | |
|---|---|---|
| Goodreads | 4.4 (549) | — |
| Hardcover | 5.0 (1) | 4.7 (11) |
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Reception
| Professional cooking | The Professional Chef | |
|---|---|---|
| Ratings | 549 | 11 |
| Editions | 10 | 31 |
| Want to read | 1675 | — |
| Reading it now | 88 | — |
| Written reviews | 27 | — |
| Pages | 818 | 1232 |
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Questions readers ask
Which is rated higher: Professional cooking or The Professional Chef?
Professional cooking has the higher combined reader rating across sources (Professional cooking 4.3/5, The Professional Chef 4.1/5).
Which is shorter to read: Professional cooking or The Professional Chef?
Professional cooking is the quickest read. Estimated at 225 words per minute: Professional cooking (818 pages, ≈ 15 h 09 m); The Professional Chef (1232 pages, ≈ 22 h 49 m).
Which is harder to read: Professional cooking or The Professional Chef?
Estimated difficulty, based on era, reader shelves and length — Professional cooking: Moderate; The Professional Chef: Challenging.