Jaques Pepin's Complete Techniques.

[Wohoki]

Although not really a book that every home needs to have, unless you pretend to haute cuisine, this book contains step-by-step instructions (with photo.s) on tunnel-boning whole hams; making sausages, salamis and saucisson; curing pork; butchery; and a vast wealth of info on every aspect of French cooking. Knife sharpening, vegetable preparation and so on, and on, and on. 830 pages of techniques.

Get one.

(Mine was on eBay for a fiver plus the same in P&P.) Worth ever penny.

[Wohoki]

Oh, ISBN 1-57912-220-5