America's Best Lost Recipes: 121 Heirloom Recipes Too Good to Forget [Spiral-bound]

The Editors of Cook's Country Magazine (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 2007

Ever heard of cold-oven pound cake, Hummingbird Cake, Mile-High Bologna Pie, or Mashed-Potato Fudge?

You'll find these recipes and more like them in America's Best Lost Recipes, a book that grew out of a nationwide contest for the best heirloom recipes, with recipes selected and put through their paces by the editors of Cook's Country magazine.

Evocative of both family ties and our national heritage, recipes like these are powerful touchstones for the past. Packed with full-color photos and enhanced features that make it a perfect gift (blank pages on which to detail your own family's lost recipes, a pocket to hold the recipes, and a bookplate), this collection features food you will want to make for your family and friends. Test kitchen notes tell the story of our recipe testing and detail what you need to know to be successful in the kitchen.

Contest entrants describe the recipes and history in their own words in brief introductions, lending this collection a narrative and personal quality few cookbooks possess. A slice of Americana, America's Best Lost Recipes aims to preserve the best our culinary heritage has to offer.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Cook's Country magazine, published by the indefatigable America's Test Kitchen, also home to Cook's Illustrated magazine, culls homey recipes from cooks nationwide. America's Best Lost Recipes contains 120 of these traditional family formulas, judged worthy of modern attention. These include the likes of Summer Squash Soufflé, Poor Boy Stroganoff, Almond Crescents with Burnt Butter Icing, and Clara's Chocolate Torte.

As with other America's Test Kitchen efforts, the goal has been to present "best" versions of favorite dishes. Original recipes have thus been tweaked where necessary (for example, extra yeast has been added to a monkey bread formula to speed its preparation) to ensure convenient, tasty results. Included also are "biographical" notes that place recipes in context, and useful tips that explore the testing process and thus provide technical insights. Color photos and a spiral-bound book add to the attractiveness of this tempting collection. --Arthur Boehm

Review

Here are updated heirloom favorites including Corn Dodgers and Great-Aunt Ellen's Upside-Down Lemon Pudding Cake. Here, too, are the stories surrounding such regional specialties as Benne Wafers, linked for centuries to South Carolina, where slaves were said to have smuggled sesame, or benne, seeds from Africa. A spiral-bound collection compiled by the editors of Cook's Country magazine, America's Best Lost Recipes includes notes on technique, photo how-tos and a pocket for your own stained recipe cards. If you're hankering for old-fashioned pleasures, look no further. --People Magazine

Product Details

• Spiral-bound: 224 pages
• Publisher: Cook's Illustrated (October 1, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1933615184
• ISBN-13: 978-1933615189
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 8.9 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (44 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #383,788 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

America's Test Kitchen is a 2,500 square foot kitchen located outside of Boston. It is the home of Cook's Illustrated and Cook's Country magazines and is the workday destination for over 3 dozen test cooks, editors and cookware specialists. Our mission is to test recipes until we understand how and why they work and arrive at the best version. We also test kitchen equipment and supermarket ingredients in search of brands that offer the best value and performance. You can watch us work by tuning in to our public television show, America's Test Kitchen.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

84 of 88 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Lost Recipes, November 12, 2007

By 

katefromva (Oxford, UK) - See all my reviews

This review is from: America's Best Lost Recipes: 121 Heirloom Recipes Too Good to Forget (Spiral-bound)

I can see why this is getting relatively lower reviews. If you're not familiar with the magazine, it has a feature where readers can write in and ask other readers for recipes that they have lost or have never been able to find. In some cases, the magazine will take one of these recipes and rework it and publish it along with the back story. This is a collection of those recipes, and for some reason, there are a lot of Eastern European ones. For example, Hungarian Cabbage Noodles, Kolotny Borscht, Szekely Goulasch, Kolaches, Potica - you get the idea. Maybe a disproportionate number of readers have an Eastern European background, maybe they are more forgetful with their recipes than other groups, who knows. In any case, I have the book, have tried several recipes and yes, I have an Eastern European background. I like the book so I give it 4 stars. Another good book similarly titled is Marion Cunningham's 'Lost Recipes'.

49 of 50 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Can't wait to try another recipe..., November 3, 2007

By 

Plum Mojo (Pine City, MN USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: America's Best Lost Recipes: 121 Heirloom Recipes Too Good to Forget (Spiral-bound)

I have had this cookbook for a week now and have made 4 of the recipes. Each one turned out great, and I can't wait to try another. The Phantom Stew recipe was the best stew I have ever made. These recipes are home-cooking from scratch, no mixes. It's like finding old recipes in Grandma's recipe box. I really like the test kitchen tips and the pictures on assembling, etc. If you have little ones around, the "Fluffies" pancake recipe is a must. I even used wheat flour in place of white and they were excellent! I love this cookbook and would recommend it to anyone who likes to cook/bake from scratch and isn't afraid to try new (old) things!

46 of 47 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Courageous Departure, December 20, 2007

By 

NuJoi "Create with me" (Chicago, IL United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: America's Best Lost Recipes: 121 Heirloom Recipes Too Good to Forget (Spiral-bound)

Here are my biases:
1. I love America's Test Kitchen.
2. I collect "historical" cookbooks -- I like a good story with my recipes.

This cookbook has 121 recipes divided among the following chapters:
-Starters, Salads and Sauces
-Soups Stews and Main Courses
-Breakfast and Breads
-Cakes (most robust section)
-Pies, Puddings and Fruit Desserts
-Cookies and Candies

For those who are frustrated with ATK's approach to recipe writing, this book may be refreshing for you. The background information is about the origin of the recipe and is very condensed. The recipe notes are about a paragraph in length. There are also plenty of photographs, including both finished dishes and how-to pics.

I wouldn't consider these recipes fancy; they represent good, simple American fare. Use these for casual dining. Many of them may seem odd by today's standards. Because some of these recipes are older, you'll see more of our regional differences. I didn't see a lot of Southern or African-influenced old favorites, but I think that's a function of who submitted recipes.

This book is a nice-to-have, but not a must have, at least for my kitchen. I'm looking forward to the Brooklyn Cheese Puffs, Buckwheat Pancakes, Fluffies and Hummingbird Cake.

I recommend this cookbook for collectors or for those who want to reach back and make some forgotten dishes.