4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Wonderful gathering of the best of the best Local Hawaii Recipes, December 23, 2007
This review is from: Best of the Best from Hawaii: Selected Recipes from Hawaii's Favorite Cookbooks (Best of the Best State Cookbook) (Plastic Comb)
This is a great book. It's not original/new recipes but compilations of the best of the best local Hawaii cookbooks up to the date of population. I own a cramp load of local Hawaiian cookbooks, and this is the one of the two (the other one is 50th Anneiversary Best of Our Favorite Recipes 1946 -1996 by Maui Association for Family and Community Education )I grab for when I want to make a local dish. I have also bought and mailed copies to my friends on the mainland, who have left Hawaii.
Anther local cook book I just picked up you want to try once Amazon starts carrying it, is Jean Hee's Best of the Best Hawaii Recipes by Jean Watanabe Hee. Hee is one of the top local Hawaii recipe book writers. You might want to check out her other books that Amazon dose carry.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great Book, January 30, 2010
This review is from: Best of the Best from Hawaii: Selected Recipes from Hawaii's Favorite Cookbooks (Best of the Best State Cookbook) (Plastic Comb)
I am so happy with this book. Brings up lots of memories of wonderful food growing up in Hawaii. I have made several receipes from the book and have many more book marked to make.
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10 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
A compilation of other cookbooks, June 7, 2007
This review is from: Best of the Best from Hawaii: Selected Recipes from Hawaii's Favorite Cookbooks (Best of the Best State Cookbook) (Plastic Comb)
I have very mixed feelings about this cookbook.
I gather from the introduction that this is one of a series based on visiting different states and putting together a cookbook to "preserve their food heritage". How the authors plan on summarizing the entire culinary experience of a state with such an interesting history, mix of races, and emphasis on FOOD is answered by what you get: a compilation of other cookbooks. So on the plus side, many of their sources are really good. (The entire Honpa Hongwanji series are great and are in my mother's, grandmother's, aunt's, etc collection. They're sort of dated, but have a lot of classic everyday food.) On the negative side taking a few recipes from other recipe collections gives you very little coherence, understanding of where that recipe came from (time period or heritage), or understanding of the ingredients. Plus, the selection of these recipes are just sort of strange. Spicy Garlic Eggplant and Pork (pg 128) and Spicy Szechuan Eggplant (pg 100) are basically the same recipe with minor changes from 2 different cook books. Several recipes are for poke, but the authors don't seem to realize they're related, or, at least, don't explain what it is. I have to wonder if they actually cooked these recipes at all or just leafed through the other books.
Pictures are chosen to be more atmospheric with tourist photos of the authors, scenic places, and some line drawings (not of the food). The photos of people in "native garb" (at tourist sites) also contrast with the recipes, which are largely modern pot luck sort of food. (In particular, there's a cringe-worthy vintage photo near the front that must be just for nostalgia's sake because no one I know in Hawaii would be caught dead looking like that.)
Besides the food, there are also little tidbits of information peppered through the book that are supposed to give you an idea of island life. My question: Who exactly told the authors that curry is often served at parties? What a strange generalization. They also commit the faux-pas in the preface of calling their friend a second generation Hawaiian. Hawaiians are like American Indians; you can't call yourself one just because you've moved somewhere.
So, there are definitely some good recipes in here. It's just that you stumble upon things that are just plain wierd if you're from Hawaii.
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