The Best Recipes in the World
by Mark Bittman
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Book Summary Information
Author: Mark BittmanEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2005-10-11
ISBN: 0767906721
Number of pages: 768
Publisher: Clarkson Potter
Book Reviews of The Best Recipes in the World
Book Review: Great Source of Easy Recipes. Just misnamed as usual. Buy It.
Summary: 5 Stars
`The Best Recipes in the World' by New York Times columnist and leading cookbook author, Mark Bittman promises to be a really great cookbook, and it comes very, very close to fulfilling that promise.
First, one very important thing to do is to say what this book is not, as, like many of Bittman's other books, his titles have a way of inflating one's expectations. For starters, the book is much more than those two excellent `best recipe' cookbooks, `The Greatest Dishes' by Anya von Bremzen and `The Cook's Canon' by New York Times alum, Raymond Sokolov. The former gives us only eighty recipes and the latter stops at 101. Both numbers are well within their ambitions of giving us recipes `every good cook should know'. Bittman's objective is to give us a much bigger book with over 1,000 recipes from around the world.
Second, this is not a scholarly book in the vein of Paula Wolfert's magnificent studies of various Mediterranean cuisines or even Clifford Wright's study of the whole Mediterranean. And, Bittman makes no pretensions to being scholarly. One drawback of this somewhat personal view of world cuisines is that Bittman does a lot of blurring culinary boundaries which specialists in various regions would prefer to make clear. For example, he highlights only nine (9) culinary regions of Japan and Korea; China; Southeast Asia; India; Greece, The Middle East, and North Africa; France (and Europe in General); Italy; Spain; Mexico and Latin America. I implore you to not take this as any kind of gospel on world culinary regions. I just finished reading Clifford Wright's new book on spicy foods (`Some Like It Hot') and he identifies eleven (11) spicy cuisines which don't even cover half the world. In his divisions, for example, Sichuan and Hunan cooking is different from all other cooking in China and Korean cooking is much different from either nearby Japan and Manchuria. Writers about the Iberian peninsula all say the cooking of Spain and Portugal is really a lot different, based a lot on differences in colonies. Even France and Italy are commonly divided into three and two different culinary regions respectively. This should give you the idea that Bittman's take on culinary geography is very personal. He even violates his own regions by constantly identifying sources of recipes outside his nine regions. He also does not serve some of his regions as well as he might, as, for example, he leaves cocoa out of the list of essential ingredients for Mexican cuisine.
Third, Bittman's recipes are not `classic' presentations of various dishes. Bittman is following his `minimalist' muse and using the principle that less is better. He flatly states that he is lazy and will use one ingredient in place of two whenever he can. On the good side, this is not exactly the same as the `Cooks Illustrated' premise that easier is better. Bittman says that there are complicated ways of doing many of these recipes, but I like the simpler way and that is what I give you. This lumping rather than sorting out leads to a few questionable simplifications, as when he says the common ginger can be substituted for the rare galangal. Asian ingredient expert Bruce Cost would argue that one really cannot adequately stand in for the other. On the other hand, Bittman is correct when he instructs us to use Mediterranean bay and eschew California bay.
One example of Bittman's minimalism at work in this book is his recipe for Bouillabaisse, the classic Provencal fish stew. While he recognizes the opinion that this dish simply cannot be made without some fish species which can only be found near Marseilles, he presses ahead with a relatively simple recipe calling for but 13 ingredients and but three longish steps. This is categorically NOT what most people would recognize as true bouillabaisse! That doesn't mean it is not an excellent fish stew. In comparison, Von Bremzen's recipe for bouillabaisse marseillaise involves three sub-recipes, one for the fish bouillon, one for the rouille (garnish) and croutons, and one for the fish and vegetables. And, this recipe can be made as easily in the Lehigh Valley as it can in Marseilles, since it does not call for racasse or any other fish found only on France's Mediterranean shores. If I were Bittman, I would follow the course of some Mediterranean specialists and simply call his recipe a `Mediterranean fish stew'. Another example of how Bittman simplifies recipes comes from his own `How to Cook Everything'. I love Bittman's Caesar salad recipe in the older book so I looked it up in this new volume and Bittman LEAVES OUT a step from his own recipe! He does not have us coddle (boil for a minute or two) before mixing the egg in with the dressing. This is much odder than the abbreviation of bouillabaisse, as this is not a major simplification and can be seen as being a safety concern in using totally raw eggs in a dressing.
After all this Bittman bashing, I have to say that this is a really good `big' cookbook for someone who does not want a lot of cookbooks laying around, but does want to try a wide variety of interesting recipes from around the world. I believe it is better than Ruth Reichl's `The Gourmet Cookbook' of a year ago, partially since it has a single voice rather than being a compilation from hundreds of different writers over many years. I even like the fact that it claims to be light on French and Italian recipes, since very good cookbooks on these cuisines are easy to find. I would pair this up with Bittman's `How to Cook Everything', Hazan's `Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking', and Peterson's `Glorious French Food' and be done with it. Just don't neglect Wolfert, Wright, Casas, Tropp, Jaffrey, Bayless and others for the straight scoop on world cuisines.
Summary of The Best Recipes in the World
With his million-copy bestseller How to Cook Everything, Mark Bittman made the difficult doable. Now he makes the exotic accessible.In this highly ambitious, accomplished, globe-spanning work, Bittman gathers the best recipes that people from dozens of countries around the world cook every day. And when he brings his distinctive no-frills approach to dishes that were once considered esoteric, America's home cooks will eagerly follow where they once feared to tread.
In more than a thousand recipes, Bittman compellingly demonstrates that there are many places besides Italy and France to which cooks can turn for inspiration. In addition to these favorites, he covers Spain, Portugal, Greece, Russia, Scandinavia, the Balkans, Germany, and other European destinations, giving us easy ways to make dishes like Spanish Mushroom and Chicken Paella, Greek Roast Leg of Lamb with Thyme and Orange, Russian Borscht, and Swedish Äppletorte.
Asian food now rivals European cuisine?s popularity, and this book reflects that: It?s the first to emphasize European and Asian cuisines equally, with easy-to-follow recipes for favorites like Vietnamese Stir-Fried Vegetables with Nam Pla, Pad Thai, Japanese Salmon Teriyaki, Chinese Black Bean and Garlic Spareribs, and Indian Tandoori Chicken. Nor is the rest of the world ignored: there are hundreds of recipes from North Africa, the Middle East, and Central and South America, too. All will be hits with home cooks looking to add exciting new tastes and cosmopolitan flair to their everyday repertoire.
Shop locally, cook globally?Mark Bittman makes it so easy:
? Hundreds of recipes that can be made ahead or prepared in under 30 minutes
? Informative sidebars and instructional drawings explain unfamiliar techniques and ingredients
? Fifty-two international menus, an extensive International Pantry section, and much more make this an essential addition to any cook?s shelf
The Best Recipes in the World is destined to be a classic that will change the way Americans think about everyday food. It?s simply like no other cookbook in the world.
When Mark Bittman is cooking--in every sense of the word--he gets results without fuss. Author of the almost subversively approachable How to Cook Everything, Bittman takes on big assignments and then delivers the goods. In The Best Recipes in the World, a collection of more than 1,000 international recipes, with winners like Chinese Black Bean and Garlic Spareribs; Pan-Seared Swordfish with Tomatoes, Olives, and Capers; and Stewed Lamb Shanks with Mushrooms and Pasilla Chile Sauce, he's done it again. The selection, which covers cooking from Europe and Asia equally, is all can-do and instantly appealing--readers will want to "cook through" the whole chicken section, for example. But Bittman, a master distiller, also knows when more is more, with one caveat: "I don't mind spending a long time cooking a single dish as long as I don't have to pay too much attention to what's going on," he writes. Thus, even fuller-dress recipes like the Indian Red Fish Stew, Fast and Spicy, and Tea-Smoked Duck or Chicken can work for time-deprived cooks. A dessert section that includes the tempting likes of Orange Custard, Walnut Tart, and Caramelized Pars Poached in Red Wine, caps this incisive collection.
Included also are brief but enlightening notes on ingredients and techniques such as "On Pureeing Soups," which compares all approaches thoughtfully. Symbols indicate a recipe's potential to be made ahead or in less than 30 minutes (true of most), among other variables. With a beverage chapter and menu suggestions that are actually useful, the book will appeal to a wide audience, not only for its recipes but as a source of relaxed instruction. It's an exploration of culinary essentials from a true essentialist. --Arthur Boehm
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