Customer Reviews

How to Cook and Eat in Chinese

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For anyone who wants to learn how to cook Chinese food, this is one of the classics. Written in the late 40's by a Chinese woman doctor, this is the home-style cooking of Anhui province (near Shanghai) adapted for the American home cook. Anhui food is considered "oily but generous in portions", and the protein-based nature of the recipes may seem a bit excessive for those who've gotten used to the spartan usages of contemporary America. Also Ms. Chao's puckishly imperfect English and frequent coinages sometimes get in the way -- I puzzled over the term "leaking ladle" until I found out it meant "slotted spoon", which is what I had been using. Still, she coined the term "stir-fry"...what more do you want?

I hope this book comes back into print...I've almost worn out my current copy!

I can't believe this classic cookbook is no longer in print. I've replaced mine at least once and it is now literally disintegrating. I might buy an older hardcover instead of another mass market paperback in the hopes of preserving it.

This is one of the best cookbooks I have ever come across. I was an overweight "starving student" with no cooking skills when someone gave this to me, and I taught myself to cook *and* lost weight with it in hand. The recipes are utterly non-intimidating. It was written in the 1940's, when Chinese food in the US meant chop suey, so the ingredients and equipment are generally simple, accessible, and economical. The results are healthier and taste better than some of the glop dished out in many a Chinese restaurant.

The dishes tend to be presented as a theme and variations--a basic stir fry (Dr. Chao introduced this term into English) is followed by the same recipe with slightly different ingredients. There is no food porn whatsoever--no styled photos, no line drawings, no nothing. Just words. The words are pretty amusing, though.

I can't praise this book enough. I've loved it to death a couple of times, and hope to continue.

I had (and well used) this book for years and then lost it in during a series of moves I had to make a couple years ago. Can't wait to have it back on my shelf again.

I love Chinese food, and have read and sampled from dozens of Chinese cookbooks over the years, but this is still my favorite. How To Cook And Eat In Chinese is the real deal.

It is chock full of simple, no nonsense, homestyle Chinese cooking with the most basic of ingredients you can find anywhere. Almost all the recipes have variations noted, where different vegetables or ingredients can be substituted in the technique. Results have been invariably superb.

Forget the fancy, restaurant or holiday banquet style stuff other cookbooks seem addicted to. Simplify your Chinese cooking, and your life. Your pocketbook, taste buds and your stomach will thank you for it.

I have used this book from the beginning of my Chinese cooking adventure and it's the only one I own. I have looked through others and nothing comes close to it's thoroughness in techniques and recipes. Not much else to say, makes Chinese cooking a breeze and fun.

I owned this book for many years before I read the author's note to the third (1963) edition. The last paragraph on the first page reads 'One of the modern features in household gadgetry that has been common since the last edition of this book is the wide use of freezers or freezing compartments in refrigerators' [!]. When I read that, I turned to the publishing information and learned that the first edition was published in 1940, which, by a large margin, makes this the oldest book in my fairly extensive collection of Chinese cookery books.

Let me first say that, though I love this book and regard it as a gem in my collection, I do not recommend it as a book for beginners those who merely want to learn how to cook some Chinese dishes. There are no pictures and, although the recipes are very simple and straightforward, they may in fact, be a little too simple in that they assume some fairly well-developed cooking skills on the part of the reader. It should also be noted that the recipes are quite dated in that they are limited to ingredients commonly available to western-readers at the time the early editions were first published. Nowadays, many foodstuffs once regarded as exotic, or even completely unknown, are now widely available and beginners might want to start with a more modern cookery book in order to get a much more accurate idea of Chinese cookery.

I love this book because it is such an important illustrator of the evolution of Chinese cookery in the west. There is a good review of Chinese culinary practices and techniques as understood within the author's perspective and some very interesting material suggesting menu's as might appeal to Chinese *and* western diners. All in all, this book is a must-have for serious collectors. Copies are hard to locate nowadays but grab one if you can.

This is my go-to cookbook for simple Chinese food dishes. Some of the recipes are incredibly simple, but taste great, others are merely simple and taste amazing. I have not seen anything I rate complex, although I haven't ventured into the "hot pot" section yet. It covers tools and techniques, and like the Joy of Cooking gives the theory behind a dish as well as variations and additions. There's a bare minimum of ingredients in each dish, almost all pantry staples aside from the one main ingredient.

The English is occasionally stilted, but I haven't really had any trouble decoding anything. The one limitation of this book is that it lacks fancy showpiece type dishes. I often make several dishes from this and one or two from a Martin Yan cookbook which is full of fancy dishes with long lists of ingredients, to add a bit of flair. But for the basics, and if you find yourself saying, "I want Chinese food, I have chicken and swiss chard, what can I do?" this is the book to have.

The best Chinese cookbook ever. Why has it been out of print for so many years?

this cool, campy little book has the cache of the era it came from and the ease of reading from this simpler time period. Recipes are easy to follow and its fun to learn with this book.