50 of 52 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
I love soups and hear are hundreds of soups you and I can prepare and enjoy!, January 28, 2010
This review is from: The Best Soups in the World (Paperback)
I have always loved soups. Unfortunately, for most of my life I didn't know how truly glorious soups could be. My experience was the overly salty stuff that came out of cans. Yet, I enjoyed them for their warmth, and their ease of preparation. When I began cooking a bit over a year ago, I did focus some of my early efforts on soups and stews. Wow! What a delight! What great flavor! Now the stuff in the cans seems all but inedible and terribly one dimensional. You too?
Clifford Wright provides us with a big book that will help us explore all kinds of soups. If you want to see the breadth of cuisine covered in this book, just turn to appendix B and see the soups (leaving out clear broths) organized by geographic region. Wow!
The author also provides soup basics and background in an eight page introduction that is clear, easy to read, and provides you with solid footing to being your soup explorations. You do not need a cooking background to enjoy this book, and even if you have an extensive background in cooking you are sure to find dozens of recipes here that will be new to you.
The recipes are organized logically into these chapters:
Basic broths
Clear soups
Chunky meat soups
Chunky vegetable soups
Chunky legume soups
Smooth vegetable soups
Smooth creamed soups
Smooth legume soups
Minestrone and minestrone-like soups
Grain-based soups
Chowders and bisques
Cheese soups and egg soups
Seafood soups
Chilled soups
Can you read that list and not want to jump into this book and start cooking all kinds of delicious, warm, and satisfying soups? I can't.
Some of the recipes use exotic ingredients that you may not be able to find locally and appendix A lists these ingredients and where you can buy them on the web.
While the book has no pictures, it has lots and lots of easy to envision recipes. I mean how many pictures of bowls and soups can you take anyway?
Enjoy more soups! I will keep this treasure in the collection of cooking resources I use regularly.
Reviewed by Craig Matteson, Ann Arbor, MI
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19 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Magic in a Bowl!, April 7, 2010
This review is from: The Best Soups in the World (Paperback)
Clifford Wright, a James Beard award-winning author is a long time cyber foodie friend, and when I saw his newest book I just had to get it! Our food interests are in serious alignment!
As I was tossing ingredients to make my stocks after Easter I glanced at some of Clifford's recipes and well duh yes add sage to my turkey stock-I grow Pineapple Sage which as a much more subtle than in your face sage flavour and aroma. I added a tender stalk including the just to open blossoms.
There are some drooling type recipes for Tunisian Lamb soup and Moroccan steaming bowls, both of which I plan to make. I mean how good does Harira with paprika, cinnamon, lentils, turmeric, ginger, etc. sound?
I opted for Clifford's cilantro for the turkey stock too.
I simply love the organization of this book with an ingredient index as well as cuisine index. Wow, a man after my own culinary heart!
A few words of others on this must have book: Travel the world, soup-spoon in hand, with a James Beard Award--winning author as your guide.
In restaurants and dining rooms on every continent, soup is on the menu. A Mexican chef simmers Roasted Poblano and Three Cheese Soup. A Sicilian nonna stirs Beans and Greens Soup, while her Thai counterpart cooks up Mushroom and Chile Soup. Wherever it's eaten, a bowl of soup--whether elegant or hearty, creamy or clear, chilled or piping hot--delivers rich flavor and simple satisfaction. In this ultimate soup cookbook, acclaimed cookbook author Clifford A. Wright has collected the best classical, famous, and not-so-famous recipes to be found anywhere.
My Note* I will have a critical palate when it comes to Clifford's SE Asian soups, but have confidence he won't let us down. I have traveled this region some 30 plus times learning of the culture and cuisine. I am the Thai Food Editor on Bellaonline and seriously know the tastes and techniques of the area.
The Best Soups in the World includes 247 recipes for heartwarming and palate-pleasing soups: Imagine savoring delicate Italian Small Rice Balls in Broth, refreshing California Chilled Peach Soup, piquant Georgian Beef and Apricot Soup, or curry-scented Tanzanian Black-Eyed Pea and Coconut Soup. But this is no mere collection of recipes. Wright is a food scholar; he applies his expertise in lively explorations of the history and culture behind each soup, which makes this book as rewarding to read as it is to cook from.
*My Note - Soups of the Balkans will be especially interesting to try as our son-in-law and his chef mom hail from Croatia via Kosovo where she was head chef in remarkable hotel kitchens. I am always quick to grab pork and lamb bones after family feasts of whole spit roasted animals to make my stocks and resulting soups.
Exciting, enticing, and easy-to-prepare, these recipes use ingredients both common and unusual--Wright provides Internet sources for every item--making them perfect for budget-conscious cooks whose taste know no boundaries. From Old-Fashioned Chicken Noodle to Chayote Soup from Nicaragua and from Tuscan White Bean to Vietnamese-American Pho, these soups will take you around the globe, all from the comfort of home.
Are you hungry yet? LOL I am reading this book cover to cover with little post-its dearly being placed on the recipes that are simply a must try right away while there is still a chill in the air, or should I say with wooden spoon in hand, and a basket of fresh from the garden veggies and herbs?
Clifford you have out done yourself this time enticing all cooks to the magic of a bowl of flavours! THANK YOU!
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