3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great Foodie Read. Not for vegetarians., October 31, 2007
This review is from: A Canon of Vegetables: 101 Classic Recipes (Hardcover)
`A Canon of Vegetables' by the venerable culinary journalist, Raymond Sokolov, the author of the paradigm creating `The Cooks' Canon: 101 Classic Recipes Everyone Should Know', was commissioned by Sokolow's publisher, Susan Friedland if HarperCollins / William Morrow. This origin, based in the perception of commercial gain gives me a momentary pause about the value of the book, but the twinge of doubt is vaporized as I begin reading Sokolov's classily literate take on culinary matters vegetable.
The author also begins with some disclaimers that the book is intended to be neither a manual on how to cook or a tract specifically for vegetarians. On both counts, I suspect Sokolov is being just a bit modest, as people interested in both subjects are likely to find things of value here. But, his warnings are well taken, in that this is really a book dedicated to the foodies among us. And, many recipes make ample use of eggs, milk products, and chicken stock, so the dedicated vegetarian may find the recipes something of a minefield. If you are interested ONLY in learning how to cook or how best to cook vegetarian, you will be frustrated or disappointed by the slow, erudite pace of this narrative. For vegetarian amateurs, run quickly to the books of Deborah Madison, especially `Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone' and Jack Bishop, especially `A Year in a Vegetarian Kitchen' and `Vegetables Every Day'.
Sokolov does not even claim that these are THE 101 most important vegetable recipes. He also has an extremely commonsensical approach to what is a vegetable.
The three greatest pleasures of the book are the author's erudition, the culinary insights he communicates, and the way in which he mixes these two qualities, as in this sentence on the head note to the recipe for asparagus soup:
"Add the cilantro at the last minute or the flavor will swoon away in the twinkling of a simmer."
As an example of Sokolov's tutorials on vegetable technique, he relates the exquisitely detailed method of Madame Saint-Ange, which takes up two densely packed pages in her `La Cuisine de Madame Saint-Ange'.
The organization of recipes is immensely practical, in that it is arranged by the common names of 46 different plant parts, with each product represented by between one and three recipes, plus general techniques (as in the case of the asparagus cited above) in the introduction to the product. One result of this organization is that a lot of similar products such as pulses and legumes are treated in widely separated chapters on beans, black-eyed peas, lentils, peas, and soybeans. Similarly, recipes on the crucifers appear for bok choy, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, and Napa cabbage. Alternately, huge families of species are subsumed under a single simple title, as with chilies and mushrooms. As part of Sokolov's broad brush, he includes the plantain, the `cooking banana' among his 46 vegetables, along with more common crossovers such as the tomato and the eggplant.
Cosmopolitan Sokolov tends to provide us not only with some of the worlds more exotic dishes, but relishes regaling us with their names in their original languages, as with `fave al guanciale'. Now anyone with at least three credit hours from watching the `Molto Mario' show on the Food Network will recognize this as fava beans with hog jowl. (Sokolov is obviously considerate enough to provide the translation in every case, but highlighting the original language spices our appreciation of his text.) The problem for the average reader is that fresh fava beans are both very hard to find and difficult to prepare and hog jowl is exceedingly rare out here in the hinterlands, even in the world of local Pennsylvania Dutch hog butchers (where pig's stomach is the porcine gourmet's body part of choice). And yet, Sokolov gives more valuable information on the preparation of fava beans than I have seen in any other volume. Even in his treatment of that most common and thoroughly distinctive American ingredient, corn, Sokolov takes some odd turns. All his four recipes use fresh corn off the cob, which means in the U.S. northeast, they will only be available in late June through early September, unless you use produce from Florida. All recipes are `simple' in the way Richard Olney defines simple, but that does not mean they will not involve some labor and some skill. The fourth recipe requires a very rare Andean corn (chocio) plus chicken and ground beef!
By far the most exotic recipe (to my lights, at least) is for huitlacoche soup, buried in the chapter on mushrooms (or more exactly, edible fungus in general). Huitlacoche is the grey corn smut (fungus, mold), which the pre-Columbian Americans valued about as much as the Italians and French value their truffles and foie gras. In all my culinary reading, this is only the second time I've encountered a huitlacoche recipe. The first was in the very first `Iron Chef America' show, when the challenger was the great Chicago expert on Mexican cooking, Rick Bayless. (I've since discovered a recipe for huitlacoche and chicken in Diana Kennedy's `The Essential Cuisine's of Mexico').
A last plug for the book is based on Sokolov's recipe for duxelles, the mushroom based staple of French cooking invented by Francois-Pierre de la Varenne in the 1640's. Aside from the excellent recipe is the insight that this is an example of the French genius with creating natural flavor concentrates, to be used as additives in a great number of different dishes.
In the end, only dedicated foodies are likely to have patience with Sokolov's erudite, global perspective, but for that audience, this is a long drink of cool water to refresh our reading in the armchair and inspire our knowledge in the kitchen.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
4 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
This book may be about vegetables, but it's not for vegetarians., January 22, 2008
This review is from: A Canon of Vegetables: 101 Classic Recipes (Hardcover)
I bought this book after hearing an interview with the author on NPR and thinking it sounded wonderful. Sadly, I should have done more research prior to purchasing because as a vegetarian/almost vegan, I can't cook most of the recipes. Sure, I can substitute things here and there, but it's irritating that a book based around vegetable recipes makes such heavy use of animal products. So far, this cookbook is collecting dust on my shelf.
This review probably isn't helpful for meat eaters out there, but if you're a vegetarian, take my advice and buy something else.
Edit: review updated to 3 stars now that the description clearly states that many of the recipes have meat or meat ingredients in them. At the time I purchased the book it only stated that the recipes were "based around vegetables."
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
