The New Joy of Cooking? Still a classic
Written: Oct 02 '03
|
Product Rating:
|
|
|
Pros: Has everything you need to know to cook great meals
Cons: Recipe format isn't the most clear it could be
The Bottom Line: If there is a cook book that should be installed into every kitchen, this is it. Use it and you'll be happier for it.
|
|
|
| j.aron's Full Review: Irma S. Rombauer, Ethan Becker, Maria Guarnaschell... |
The New Joy of Cooking by Irma S. Rombauer, Marion Rombauer Becker and Ethan Becker is the kitchen bible, must have but not as easy to follow and understand as it could be. The 1152 pages that make up this encyclopedia of kitchen and cooking knowledge will give you insight into everything about cooking. At the beginning and within each section of recipes, meat, vegetables, breads, grains, etc., there is a information section about the items being cooked. It's great to pull some of that stuff out while you are serving something. You'll get a fun response when you tell your friends that the artichoke they are eating is a thistle or that monk fish is also known as poor man's lobster. But on top of looking like the food know-it-all, these sections help people (me) overcome fears of trying new things, like cooking monk fish, and also give good directions on food preparation, butterfly a chicken or remove the fat from lamb.
New? Yes it is. Irma Rombauer, the author of the original Joy of Cooking passed away in 1962 and her daughter, Marion Becker, and grandson, Ethan Becker, have kept it alive and modern. But fear not, even though there are modern aspects to the New Joy of Cooking, like bread machine recipes and microwave cooking directions, great classic recipes saturate its pages. It seems like everything has heavy cream and butter in it. I'm not trying to say that this cook book is about fattening you up, any will if you over eat, but it is about cooking good tasting food. One example of this is the coffee cake recipes. The standard recipe has enough fatty goodness in it that I needed a heart bypass just reading it and there is a low fat recipe that come with the disclaimer that this is the best low fat coffee cake recipe they could find (both are great, but I do admit that I liked the fatty one better).
Who? Sure 1152 pages of Joy might be intimidating to some but this is a cook book for everyone. I have a couple other books but when it is time for me to cook the first thing I grab is the New Joy of Cooking. I'm not some super chef that went to the CIA or has my own show on PBS, most of what I know about cooking comes from this book. When I was growing up and going to college I lived on frozen pizza, ramen noodles, or anything that heating in the microwave was an option before eating (and I still do, sometimes) and this book is great for those who don't know how to cook. But it also is great for the experienced cook. My wife, who I think is a great cook, uses it more then I do (maybe why she is a better cook then me).
Flaws? Although New Joy of Cooking is a must have cook book, it isn't perfect. One thing is that the recipes are organized by what you have to add at what time. So you need to make sure that you read though the whole recipe first and make sure you have everything and know what you are doing at each step before you start. I have started out making something and in the middle of it rush off to the store to get something I missed. So it would be nice if at the beginning of each recipe was a list of thing you'll need, ingredients, mixers, etc., but this probably would add another 200 pages. The second flaw is that it is big. Sure it has everything in it but it is 1152 pages, but I'll defend this one. As I mentioned I have other cook books and even though those have fewer pages they are formatted to take up more space. Do I need to see color photos of food that I wont be able to make look like that? No. My advice when looking at cook book sizes is not to look at the number of pages but at how much counter space it will take up when it is open. When you do that, the New Joy of Cooking isn't too large.
Recommended:
Yes
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
j.aron
|
|
Location: Hot Sulphur Springs, CO, USA
Reviews written: 39
Trusted by: 15 members
About Me:
Biography being updated and cleaning up stuff from a long break from Epinions.
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.