H. L. CRACKNELL and R. J. KAUFMANN spent their early years working in the kitchens of several large hotels in London and Europe. The translators met when they were both working at London's Savoy Hotel in the late 1940s: a kitchen where the shadow of its first chef, Escoffier, still cast its influence. They subsequently became lecturers in cookery in a number of technical colleges where they endeavoured to maintain the importance of those fundamentals which Escoffier saw as necessary to the profitability and success of any catering enterprise. The translators have been on the staff of leading centres of catering education in the United Kingdom. H. L. Cracknell is a member of the Association Culinaire Francaise, founded by A. Escoffier and E. Fetu in 1903. and they are also holders of the Maitrise Escoffier and Cordon Culinaire, both awarded by the Conseil Culinaire Francais. The translators have acted as consultant editors to The Illustrated Escoffier, also published by Heinemann, as a selection of several hundred of the more popular recipes from this book, many of which are illustrated with superb colour photographs and contain more detailed information for their preparation.
