Thursday, June 02, 2005
Review: The New Best Recipe
The New Best Recipe
Cookbooks come in three broad types: chef-centric food porn, with gorgeous photography but recipes you can't really make at home, general cookbooks that cover the basics, often with line drawings for cost reasons, and specialty books that deal exclusively with a regional, ethnic, or other specific cuisine.
The New Best Recipe falls into the second group, offering a wide array of recipes from appetizers to entrées , sides dishes to desserts. A follow-up to the original The Best Recipe
, the new edition contains over 1,000 recipes, some new and others updated. Another product of the Christopher Kimball workshop (editors of Cook's Illustrated
), this volume falls squarely in line with the Cook's Illustrated philosophy—extensively tested fool-proof recipes that rely on science rather than art to produce good food.
The New Best Recipe has a distinctive style that you either enjoy or despise. Readers who are fond of color photography, creative spontaneity, or placing their personal stamp on a dish will probably not like this book. The pictures are spartan, the tone is authoritative and detailed, with an emphasis on understanding what works and what doesn't in a recipe (a good thing) at the expense of exploring unusual ingredients or innovative flavors (probably a bad thing.) The flavors of the New Best Recipe are generally solid but not adventurous, avoiding hard-t0-find items but steering well clear of convenience recipes full of prepackaged food.
Two complaints I have about Cook's Illustrated books in general is the low recipe-to-page ratio (much introductory text for each recipe which is fun to read at bedtime, but largely useless as a reference) and the sharing of recipes between cookbooks. An cookbook on grilling, for example, will overlap to a large extent the recipes already in the New Best Recipe. That makes this volume a better overall value, however, unless you are particularly interested in a specific sub-topic.
Although it probably won't replace the Joy of Cooking
or How to Cook Everything
as your go-to cookbook, this is a solid addition to any cook's library and a special treat for Cook's Illustrated fans.
Cookbooks come in three broad types: chef-centric food porn, with gorgeous photography but recipes you can't really make at home, general cookbooks that cover the basics, often with line drawings for cost reasons, and specialty books that deal exclusively with a regional, ethnic, or other specific cuisine.
The New Best Recipe falls into the second group, offering a wide array of recipes from appetizers to entrées , sides dishes to desserts. A follow-up to the original The Best Recipe
, the new edition contains over 1,000 recipes, some new and others updated. Another product of the Christopher Kimball workshop (editors of Cook's Illustrated), this volume falls squarely in line with the Cook's Illustrated philosophy—extensively tested fool-proof recipes that rely on science rather than art to produce good food.The New Best Recipe has a distinctive style that you either enjoy or despise. Readers who are fond of color photography, creative spontaneity, or placing their personal stamp on a dish will probably not like this book. The pictures are spartan, the tone is authoritative and detailed, with an emphasis on understanding what works and what doesn't in a recipe (a good thing) at the expense of exploring unusual ingredients or innovative flavors (probably a bad thing.) The flavors of the New Best Recipe are generally solid but not adventurous, avoiding hard-t0-find items but steering well clear of convenience recipes full of prepackaged food.
Two complaints I have about Cook's Illustrated books in general is the low recipe-to-page ratio (much introductory text for each recipe which is fun to read at bedtime, but largely useless as a reference) and the sharing of recipes between cookbooks. An cookbook on grilling, for example, will overlap to a large extent the recipes already in the New Best Recipe. That makes this volume a better overall value, however, unless you are particularly interested in a specific sub-topic.
Although it probably won't replace the Joy of Cooking
or How to Cook Everything as your go-to cookbook, this is a solid addition to any cook's library and a special treat for Cook's Illustrated fans.
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I agree with every word you said. I love The Best Recipe, but you are right--it overlaps way too much with other Cook's Illustrated books. Having said that, the recipes have become some of my favorites. Great review.
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