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Manic cartoon pigs and other cookbook standards

It’s not every cookbook article that can reasonably be titled “Serious Cookbook, Manic Pig,” but from the sounds of it, Au Pied de Cochon — The Album isn’t your average cookbook. As The New York Times reports, the cookbook created by chef Martin Picard and the staff of his Montreal restaurant is not exactly typical of the genre.

For one thing, it was self-published, and the first press run of 6,000 copies sold out in three weeks. For another, it was written by Picard and the staff of Au Pied de Cochon over two years on Mondays, the restaurant’s weekly day of closure.

As a result, the group had the freedom to do pretty much whatever they wanted: “How else could they open the book with a photograph of Mr. Picard in a meat locker, slugging a split pig as if it’s a punching bag while his shirtless staff watches? Would a big publisher have let them include a picture of the barrel-chested Mr. Picard wearing nothing but a regal sash under the title ‘PDC Food Porn,’ or a portrait of the dishwashers acknowledging their hard work, or a phone message from an unhappy diner with choice words for Mr. Picard?”

The illustrations, by waiter Tom Tassel, include “a manic pig with a missing foot” who “hobbles around with a glass of wine, falls in love with a roasted Guinea hen, sucks sap out of a maple tree and, next to a recipe for a cookie with an off-color name, loses consciousness under a nun’s habit.”

Related links:
Read more about Au Pied de Cochon at the Times

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