AT HOME WITH THE FRENCH CLASSICS

Grausman--who has taught French cooking in America under the Cordon Bleu auspices, and who accompanies these recipes with pedagogical sidebars, illustrated procedures, and bits of advice--has adapted many of the standard French recipes to cut down on salt, sugar, fat, and preparation time and to accommodate the limited pantry of an unreconstructed American supermarket shopper. Thus, Grausman will start a consomm‚ with canned stock, use a food processor for fish mousse, and make a ""rough puff"" pastry less time-consuming than the traditional version. Much of Grausman's streamlining is clever and sensible, and many of his tips are quite handy, though some of his compromises between tradition and convenience seem arbitrary and inconsistent: He suggests looking for imported ""yellow potatoes"" for a true French-fried flavor, but cavalierly suggests that ""if you can't get truffles, eliminate them""--from truffled chicken--and adds cilantro and ginger to a curried shrimp dish, only to make the innovation optional. The whole approach, including the recipe selection, seems geared to a Fifties gourmet with an Eighties concern for nutrition. For others, what might work as a course in Gransman's presence might better be browsed selectively in this form.