Comments: If the folks at Ochef were to choose the 101 recipes they thought everyone should know, we doubt there'd be more than 15 to 20 percent overlap with the 101 recipes Raymond Sokolov has chosen. But we're also not sure we have the guts to narrow the world's recipes down to a mere hundred. So Sokolov beats us there.

The recipes are primarily French, with a fair mix of Italian, Mexican, and American, and with nods toward North Africa and Asia. Sokolov says each of the recipes is not only delicious, but also influential and famous — often standing for a country's national cuisine, as in the case of paella for Spain and osso buco for Italy. Other recipes represent whole categories of food, he says, such as cannelloni for pasta and blanquette de veau for stews.

Omelet, pizza, fudge, doughnuts, mashed potatoes, apple pie, macaroni and cheese, chocolate pudding, meatloaf, chicken soup, and southern fried chicken fill out the comfort-food component, while crayfish bisque, pork vindaloo, duck à l'Orange, homard à l'Américaine, lamb biryani, shrimp, crab and okra gumbo, Szechwan dry-fried beef, truite au bleu, a whole suckling pig, and a number of other recipes will certainly broaden most people's horizons, if not their cooking repertoire

We liked the Maiale in Latte (Italian Roast Pork in Milk — the world's least kosher recipe) so much, we thought that alone was worth the price of the book. So for our money, the other 100 recipes in the canon are all gravy.