Customer Reviews

Charmaine Solomon's Encyclopedia of Asian Food

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I cannot imagine undertaking a task such as this. The authors have obviously spent countless hours in painstaking research - befitting the immaculate illustrations. The result is a comprehensive guide to the essential foods and ingredients of the cuisines of Asia, informative yet not without warmth and humour. (See the entry on that much maligned South-East Asian delicacy, the durian.) To add to the evocative descriptions of unfamiliar and exotic ingredients are recipes on how they may be used. If you never imagined you'd want to eat banana skins, try the recipe on p.282 for Green Plantain Skin Temperado. Not a lot of ingredients, but incredibly tasty. A great guide book for those wanting to get intimately acquainted with the essential flavours of Asia. Although this book stands alone as a textbook and cookbook, if you're really enthusiastic about cooking and eating authentic Asian dishes, you'll also want to own The Complete Asian Cookbook by Charmaine Solomon. Her recipes are always easy to follow and reliable. There is a recent edition of the The Complete Asian Cookbook with new photographs, but the recipes are the same. I've had mine since 1976. In spite of a swathe of newcomers on the subject, Solomon's tome keeps getting reprinted year after year. That says something.

This book should earn 5 stars -- it's got all the essential ingredients. So why do I only give it 3? The index can be hard to use (I often have trouble finding what I'm looking for). At least one recipe I've used was inaccurate. It could be more complete. A good companion book to this one is called simply "Southeast Asian cooking" by a German publisher (no author listed), because that book often has information missing in the Solomon book. However, there are many positives about this book. There are pictures of many unusual (for the western cook) ingredients and what to do with them. There are lots of good explanations about certain ingredients. For value for money, though, I'd wait to see if a new, cleaned up more complete edition comes out -- this book is pretty spendy for what you get. Check it out at the library before you buy it to see if it's really what you need.

This is a truly encyclopedic work, essential for anyone interested in serious Asian cooking or eating. Not only is it full of good information on the foodstuffs of the region, it's chockablock with excellent recipes.

I had this book on my wish list for quite a long time but I have to say that once I finally received it I was a little disappointed. Although it touts itself as an encyclopedia, the book is really not that comprehensive. It would be unfair, of course, to expect that any book could cover such a broad topic in complete detail but the book, as it is, focuses too much on aspects of Asian cuisine that are already fairly well known and documented and then fails to cover, or else gives very little attention, to more exotic or little-known foodstuffs. For example, the section on chicken lists quite a few pages of recipes that would be well known to the types of people who would be moved to buy this book, but then deals with some obscure, but interesting foodstuffs in only a few lines, giving little or no practical information on how such items be used. I would also note that I found several entries to be of questionable accuracy having regard to information easily found in other cookery books.

I've read 2 dozen books on the subject of Asian cooking and without question, this volume out shines all the others. In scope and dimension, it excels in information which is not only usable, but accurate and very readable. A consummate work of art on the spectacular world of Asian cooking. My constant companion in the kitchen.

Charmaine Solomon won, with her previous edition of this book, the Silver Ladle in the inaugural World Food Media Awards.

The awards are designed to recognise those within the culinary industry dedicated to the achievement of excellence.

The awards are held bi-ennially, in Adelaide, South Australia.

Congratulations Charmaine, on a fantastic and well-deserved win.