The new gold standard?

It's not every day that we experience a frontal assault on culinary history. But there is no doubt that the 1,300-page "Gourmet Cookbook" -- priced to fly at a bargain $40 -- is trying to make a statement no one will soon forget. Swathed in its buttercup-yellow dustjacket with an embossed copper metallic title, fat with the promise of easy and luscious dinners, the book arrives in stores this week amid much speculation. "The Gourmet Cookbook" is something of a phenomenon because publishers typically don't invest this kind of money in a single volume, nor do they print a

staggering 200,000 cookbooks. Boston-based Houghton Mifflin took on the project because they "wanted a flagship cookbook that could anchor all our other titles for years to come," says Rux Martin, the book's editor. There hasn't been anything like this since the 1931 mainstay "Joy of Cooking" was spiffed up by a team of well-known writers in 1997 and turned into "The All New All Purpose Joy of Cooking" (1,136 pages). In America in the last century, almost every home cook made family meals from "Joy" or the New England favorite "Fannie Farmer."

Though there were other volumes available, these were the classics, the places to turn for muffins and rolls, meatloaf, simple chicken recipes, and instructions on how long to cook the pork roast. The books had dishes for anything you might want to prepare for family and friends, and easy ways to get it done. There were no color pictures, nothing to but recipes that stood or fell on their own merits.

The new Gourmet volume, with retested recipes from 60 years of the magazine, has no photographs either, just bright yellow recipe titles and a few line drawings to show techniques. Unlike the earlier books, it doesn't have a single person behind it. "Joy" had the cheerful

voice of St. Louis native Irma Rombauer, and "Fannie Farmer" had the Boston-born Farmer's practical tone. But "The Gourmet Cookbook" -- assembled by many staff members -- is different, positioned to have not so much a voice as a face: Gourmet editor in chief Ruth Reichl. Former restaurant critic of The New York Times and Los Angeles Times, Reichl is the author of two best-selling memoirs, "Tender at the Bone" and "Comfort Me With Apples." A photograph of the dark-haired editor appears every month in the magazine.

Reichl is frank about positioning "The Gourmet Cookbook" as the new rival to "Joy." "For me, I see it as supplanting the `Joy of Cooking,' " she says.

To that end, "The Gourmet Cookbook" brings American cooking into the 21st century. Where once Gourmet magazine had an elitist readership who traveled the world and probably had someone in the kitchen doing the cooking, the new book is less cosmopolitan, but more global; that is to say, it features ethnic cuisines that are as much a part of the contemporary table as roast beef and roast potatoes once were.

While the supermarket aisles have diversified, many standard ingredients have changed. "In the '40s you could buy a piece of pork, throw it in the oven, and it would be great," says Reichl. That wasn't beginner's luck, but rather because pork had more fat; today's pigs are 50 percent leaner. "The `other white meat' is probably better for you, but it's a lot

harder to cook." Also typical today is that everyone in the kitchen is working against the clock, a fact the book acknowledges by timing recipes to the minute. (Memo to readers: Be on the alert for potential time sinkholes in the ingredient lists, such as "shrimp, peeled and deveined" or "tomatoes, peeled, seeded, and chopped").

Recipes pay homage to the dishes people might be ordering when they're out. To that end, you'll find artichokes fried in six cups of oil, pot au feu with roast marrow bones, turkey-breast ballotines, sweetbreads blanched and sauteed with parsnip-potato puree. Simpler are the instructions for wrapping whole trout in bacon, simmering chickpeas in a Moroccan stew with preserved lemons (the recipe for which is also included), braising ham in a maple raisin sauce, and glazing steaks with a cognac shallot sauce for steak Diane. Since its first issue in 1941, Gourmet magazine has published more than 50,000 recipes. Winnowing these down to a mere 1,000 was the first of a series of herculean tasks. Reichl says that choosing the recipes with coeditors Zanne Stewart and Kemp Minifie "was an education in itself." The editors relived American culinary history as they worked on the 2 1/2-year project, reembracing classics like lobster Newburg while attemping to avoid "silly, fussy recipes from the '50s," says Reichl."You'd arrive at 9 and there'd be 18 chocolate cakes or 20 salmon dishes," says Reichl. "So we'd be testing for the cookbook first thing in the morning, and then testing for the magazine during the day, and then there'd be another cookbook tasting at lunchtime."

Previous Gourmet cookbooks were venerable tomes, published and updated throughout the '50s. Many who recall their brown leather binding and gilt-stamped title may remember them as fantasy cookbooks consulted by parents who could never quite bring themselves to use them. The shellfish section included terrapin and turtle. There were a dozen aspic recipes, detailed directions on making crystallized flowers for your "tea table," and no ingredient lists or handy tips. Just an authoritative prose that might command you, tersely, to "make a mousseline forcemeat" (who on earth could do that?) or "clean and pluck 3 plump young pheasants."

Stewart, the magazine's executive food editor, has been at Gourmet for 32 years. She says that the old Gourmet "deserved the elitist arrows that were slung at it. It was not for the masses." As Gourmet grew and explored new culinary horizons, that lofty impression nevertheless persisted. "People had the wrong impression of Gourmet as snooty and aloof. We didn't have our voice," says Stewart, who insists it came with Reichl. By modernizing the magazine, letting readers glimpse the test kitchens, adding cooking times, and introducing a more informal tone, says Reichl, "I wanted the recipes to be as much as possible like someone standing next to you in the kitchen talking you through it."

Former Boston resident and cookbook author John "Doc" Willoughby, who became Gourmet's executive editor in 2001, adds that "immigration has really expanded the culinary vocabulary of the country," along with a more recreational attitude towards dining. "People are willing to experiment more."

Positioning the book as a volume for everyone meant an affordable price tag. Houghton's Martin says that in order for the book to lie flat on the counter, the binding had to be sewn. The publisher is backing the volume with a big advertising campaign; many stores, including Costco, have responded with sizable orders.

Martin describes the manuscript as "scary -- scary big. In the end all of us who worked on the book had piles and piles of manuscript in our office." When production concluded, Houghton threw a party and brought the final pages to the celebration room as the centerpiece. It took three men to push the cart holding them. Martin felt that the truest endorsement of the work came from a marketing colleague she considers a perfectionist. The woman threw an important dinner party composed entirely of "Gourmet Cookbook" recipes, all but two of which she had never tried before. "It combines that kind of high adventure with that absolute certainty that you'll be OK," says Martin. And the party was a great success. They're counting on other cooks turning to the "Gourmet" book with the same confidence. And stashing a well-thumbed "Joy" back on the shelf.