Cooking: A Cook's Dictionary [Paperback]

Henry Beard (Author), Roy McKie (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 4, 1985

Gadget: Any mechanical device that performs a kitchen task in one-twentieth the time it takes to find it. Fermentation: Chemical reaction, caused by microbes, that turns malt into belches and grapes into hangovers. From the 2.4-million-copy bestselling series that gave new meaning to the word dictionary for sailors, golfers, computer users, and more, here is the last-and funniest-word on cooking.

Skewering the world of food preparation and its phrases and foibles, the authors mince through all the confusion and pretension to serve up the ultimate book for cooks, gourmets, and gourmands. Calorie to craving, al dente to al musho, over 200 delicious definitions and 50 full-color, full-page drawings add spice and wit to the kitchen. 102,000 copies in print.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

THE DICTIONARY THAT DOESN'T MINCE WORDS

A lexicon bringing new meaning to matters of taste.

FROM:

Chef: Any cook who swears in French.

TO:

Helpful Guest. Well-intentioned individual who assists in the process of converting the good china into the everyday china.

About the Author

Henry Beard is the cofounder of National Lampoon. He is also the author of Golfing, Sailing and other well-defined dictionaries, as well as Zen for Cats, The Official Exceptions to the Rules of Golf and dozens of other books.

Roy McKie illustrated all the well-defined dictionaries. He also illustrated many Dr. Seuss Beginning books, which have over 20 million copies in print.

Product Details

• Paperback: 111 pages
• Publisher: Workman Publishing Company; 1st edition (January 4, 1985)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0894808435
• ISBN-13: 978-0894808432
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 8 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #537,706 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #8 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Entertainment > Humor > Cooking

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Inessential or, When Satire Seems Redundant, October 29, 2007

By 

Brian Connors (Yarmouth, MA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Cooking: A Cook's Dictionary (Paperback)

Henry Beard remains one of the better satirists out there. Never high-profile, but always digging in at the edges and providing consistently funny material to keep the shelves of the nation's bookstores' Humor sections stocked, Beard and illustrator Roy McKie wrote this series over the course of the 80s and early 90s in the tradition of Ambrose Bierce to provide humor for many hobbies. Clever, yes -- Beard is one of the greats in his field -- but...

The problem is that to properly channel Ambrose Bierce, one must not only be talented. One must also be relevant. Beard and McKie didn't quite hit it on this one.

The target audience for this book would seem to be people who enjoy cooking. For those people, many of the frustrations in this book are a little obscure or irrelevant -- for the most part, people who like to cook don't find it a particularly frustrating experience. Which is not to take away from the humor level -- if you take it from the perspective of someone who truly hates to cook (and, unfortunately, wouldn't really have much interest in this book), the humor is actually pretty good. Beard has a distinct talent for wordplay (especially as regards dialect), and McKie's art (here, very similar stylistically to that of Quentin Blake, Hilary Price, and John Callahan) shows an equally well-developed talent for matter-of-fact sight gags of the Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker style. All that makes for a very well-crafted, quite enjoyable, yet somewhat irrelevant read.

After 22 years, this book remains in print for good reason -- Beard's work in general has stood the test of time over the years, and hopefully there will be much more from him showing his unique twist on reality. But this particular book has a limited audience -- cooks who also happen to be fans of Bierce, Richard Lederer, and other wordplay specialists will like this book, but those who don't so much care about such writers will find it odd at best.