Customer Reviews

The Cook's Country Cookbook: Regional and Heirloom Favorites Tested and Reimagined for Today's Home Cooks

5 star:		(43)
4 star:		(19)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I would like to take issue with the previous reviewer concerning the fact that the recipes are taken from previous magazines. I for one am delighted to have these excellent and thoroughly tested recipes and product reviews and commentary finaly assembled into a single well organized cookbook. I greatly value these recipes and use them often, but found it tedious to have to thumb through the magazine issues looking for ideas for cooking pork chops for example. All similar recipes are grouped together. If one uses the monthly magazines and then reads the book description and reviews (above), it should be obvious that the magazine recipes would appear in " Cook's Country's" first ever cookbook! Why wouldn't they? I would be dissapointed if I looked for my favorite recipes from the magazine in the cookbook and couldn't find them. Especially for tried and true classics.
For example, If the people at "Cook's Illustrated/ Cook's Country" test recipes for fried chicken and after much tweeking (as is their custom) offer up a recipe that is the "best recipe", I would expect to see that recipe in any of their cookbooks in which it would be pertinent. How many BEST recipes for a single dish can their be. I assume ONE. Therefore whether I reach for their "American Classics" volume or one of their more comprehensive cookbooks, I would expect to find THE best recipe for fried chicken in all of them, unless of course they've further developed that recipe.
I've repeatedly seen this kind of complaint , that they repeat recipes (as if this was a flaw or a rip off, which it's not) and/or they never add new recipes. Cook's Illustrated is constantly testing and publishing new recipes and sometimes updating older ones.
I've been an avid professional and home cook for about 40 years now and own thousands of cookbooks and nothing comes close to the cookbooks offered by "Cook's Illustrated'" (I own them all). I'm not alone in this opinion. Read the reviews for their other cookbooks.
I would highly recommend any thing they publish to any one who enjoys cooking and wants thoroughly tested, fool-proof, and delicious recipes with one caveat. Read the descriptions and reviews of the book(s) you intend to purchase and make certain it's something you want.

I'll admit upfront that I'm a big Cook's Illustrated fan. I watch the magazine's "America's Test Kitchen: Season 8" show on PBS and subscribe to Cook's Country, Cook's Illustrated's magazine aimed at presenting convenient versions of classic American recipes. Most of the recipes in this book are taken from that very fine magazine.

First of all, the big reason I'm such a fan is that the folks at Cook's really test, test and test again before presenting their recipes either in print or on their various broadcasts. I've tried many of their recipes -- everything from pulled pork and "jucy lucy" [sic] hamburgers to chicken biryani and coq au vin -- and they've always turned out great. This test-kitchen approach is what's behind Cook's Country's recipes.

Second, the editors often take pains to explain just how tough a particular recipe was to crack, sometimes taking the reader step-by-step through their trial-and-error processes. These explanations as to how they ended up making certain decisions for the final recipes are educational. (An example: The recipe here for firecracker chicken was a real challenge for the test kitchen, it seems. The big issue was getting a crust with a good texture that wouldn't slide off of slippery chicken breasts before frying or get blown off by escaping moisture while frying. How they ended up with the solution they did is edifying, in that it's a breading technique I can now apply to other recipes, too.)

Third, Cook's does a great job of working with ingredients you can easily find in your local supermarket, which is a big plus for those of us not living in the hippest of metros or who don't want to buy four different types of pricey imported cheese for a single lasagna recipe. (Not that there's anything wrong with that.)

Fourth, while many of the recipes are classic, these recipes are not old. They are modern versions that deliver the taste of the past but are engineered with an eye toward a modern kitchen and a modern pantry. The folks at Cook's are not snobs; if a particular recipe works best using a microwave oven at some point, they'll tell you. If canned diced tomatoes will work as well in a specific recipe as fresh tomatoes, they'll tell you that, too. And while you'll find many retro dishes here -- casseroles, stews, roast chicken, desserts and the like -- you'll also find things that you haven't run across before but seem like you should have, like their Guinness beef pot pie with bacon, skillet pizza or "unstuffed" chicken breasts.

Lastly, the tone of The Cook's Country Cookbook is just right. I honestly don't remember ever reading one of these recipes and feeling I needed more info. I also never felt overwhelmed with info or with chef jargon, either. The editorial voice is competent but friendly and the text is easy on the brain.

If you want one classic American recipe book that you can trust, this is the one. I don't normally give out five stars in my reviews; I reserve that rating for stuff I think is truly first rate. I really think The Cook's Country Cookbook is at that level.

If you are searching for fancy-schmancy, this will not be the book for you. However, if you are looking for a cookbook that covers the basics of comfort cooking with good pictures of finished recipes and "how-to" pictures with text this is an excellent cookbook for the beginner and beyond.

America's Test kitchen goes through many variations of a recipe in order to get to the one that they believe is the best of the best, and that is what they bring to you in this book. I tried the beer bread and used the smoked gouda cheese variation (sans the bacon, but that would have been good too). The bread came out great and I liked the explanation before the recipe of some of the other variations that they tried before coming to the final recipe-why they suggest a lighter beer, how much butter they thought should be used and why it seemed to work better.

As you thumb through the book there are old favorites, chicken soup, macaroni and cheese, snickerdoodles, red velvet cake and regional cooking from the South etc.

I think this cookbook will make a great addition to my kitchen library that I will turn to again and again for their clear, concise instruction and reliable recipes.

This would be a nice cookbook for a beginner to have as many of the recipes are basic and the instruction on technique is very good.
It would also make a nice gift for a newlywed, along with some of the kitchen basics.

For those of you who know me or have followed my reviews you know that I review a lot of cookbooks, that I spend a good part of my time each year living on a sailboat in the Caribbean, that I love to cook, that I consider myself somewhat of a gourmet chef. If you've looked at my Amazon "So You'd Like to Guides" you know that I like to post some of my favorite recipes. So when I got the chance to get and review this book, I leapt at it.

I've got quite a collection of cookbooks and a lot of them, like this one, are pretty hefty tomes, but this outweighs most of them. And unlike a lot of them, there are now pretty color pictures of completed and delicious meals. Okay, I've been doing this for a long time, I don't need a picture, I can almost see the finished product, by just looking at the recipe. But I think there are those out there who would like shiny, color photos.

In the intro on the inside dust jacket flap you learn that the Cook's Country people have done a lot of detective work, searching out and finding blue ribbon recipes from America's country kitchens past and present. These recipes have been lovingly preserved and updated, cooked and recooked in their kitchens till they are mouth wateringly, tasty good. Over five hundred country recipes.

So, did they achieve their task? Are these recipes that good? It'll take several years of cooking and eating to find that out for sure, but to run a test I skimmed through the book, settled on the Turkey Tetrazzini on page 262 and cooked it up for hubby Dub and friends. Wowie, was it ever good. We don't eat a lot of beef, hardly any at all, so when we do it's gotta be gooood! I did the Sunday-Best Garlic Roast Beef and son of a gun if it wasn't as good, maybe even better, than my Spanish mama's and she really loves her garlic.

But the real test for me for a book like this is how are the shrimp and fish recipes. The Shrimp Jambalaya on page 393 was as good as anything I've had in New Orleans and I've had it there a lot. The Crab Imperial on the next page is smoking good too. I would have like to see more seafood recipes as Dub and I are big fish eaters (not big people, but big on seafood), but you can't have everything. That's about it as far as the recipes I've tried, but from the results, I'll be cooking up more.

Did I say it's heavy, it is, so it can't come to the boat, because Dub and I have a very simple rule, you can bring on whatever you want, but you have to take off something of equal size and weight and I sure don't want to jettison my scuba tank. Still, I've already typed quite a few of the recipes into my aging iBook (PowerBook died). Because I sure love to cook at sea and I'll be cooking up recipes out of this book for some time to come.

I knew I would love this cookbook because it is a 598 page collection of fabulous regional American recipes from the Cook's Country Magazine that I already own every issue of. I appreciate having so many of the recipes in book form because it is much easier to browse and reference than individual back issues. There are many tips and techniques pictured throughout but only some of the recipes are pictured and they are clustered in 4 sections. I would recommend it for anyone and I think it would also make a great 1st cookbook because the lengthy introductions with explanations of what did and did not work in developing the recipe and why is great instruction for beginning cooks.
There are so many great recipes but you absolutely have to make the Chocolate Blackout Cake!

The categories are:
Starters and Snacks
Salads and Dressings
Soups Stews and Chilis
On the Side
Lunch Counter Specials
Hearty Breakfasts
Morning and Teatime Treats
Bread Basket Favorites
Casseroles and Other Potluck Favorites
Chicken and Turkey Every Way
Beef and Pork
Seafood
Slow Cooker Favorites
Cookies and Bars Galore
Blue Ribbon Cakes
Homespun Pies and Fruit Desserts
Spoon Desserts

This is a cookbook that is, in many ways, a passing-on of the cooking I grew up on. I was raised on a Western cattle ranch and learned to cook from the Joy of Cooking (although snickerdoodles came from Betty Crocker) and a Spice Island cookbook. In college on the east coast, I added Fanny Farmer to the shelf thanks to a Midwestern roommate.

What this book has that none of the above had is the voice that accompanies the cookbook. The preface to each recipe tells you how and why the recipe evolved. For example, on rice pudding it begins with telling you what the characteristics of a perfect rice pudding are. Then it explains why, after testing, they chose to cook the rice first in water rather than milk. Then they compare methods of cooking rice and finally explain the choice of rice. This provides the VOICE of Mother, older sister and others who taught me to cook. The book then provides "valued-added" in the form of variations on the recipe. Some recipes are supported by photos that illustrate specific techniques. This provides the HANDS of Mother, et. al. showing me how to do specific tasks.

The cookbook, therefore, allows the cook to use the recipes while knowing the results of not following the recipe exactly. The information allows one to tweak to one's own definition of perfect. I found basic recipes were not as I learned them, e.g. cornmeal mush rather than cornbread on tamale pie, cranberries in the apple crisp ...

This is definitely a cookbook to recommend.

LOVE this cookbook! This is the type of book that I will use for years to come, and maybe one day, if they are lucky, I will pass it on to my boys. I will make notes in the margins, maybe add a quirky little anecdote about a recipe, but I will use this one constantly.

When I received this book in the mail, I was unsure how to proceed with my review. Should I make some of the recipes? Should I just sort through the book? I decided to do both.

Going through the book was fun! I marked the recipes I wanted to try, but I also appreciated the short tutorials, pictures included. A few included are: How to roll bread, how to drop dumplings into your stew, how to debone a chicken breast. There are also helpful little anecdotes before each recipe. Included in these little blurbs might be a definition of cooking terms, the history of the dish, and some helpful hints to make the recipe easier. I consider myself an accomplished cook, but every cook needs a strong basic book, and for me this is going to be mine.

My 9 year old picked out the first recipe-Ultimate Spicy Beef Nachos in the Starters and Snacks section. It was a pretty basic recipe, but easily adaptable for all types of palates and what kid doesn't love nachos. The recipe was easy to follow- and my son got a big kick out of using a 'real' cookbook with mom. Next we made the Easy Meat Lasagna. My family loves lasagna, but since it can be time consuming I often buy a frozen one, not anymore. Again, the recipe is very easy to follow and is laid out in an easily read format, something I appreciate when following a new recipe. To top it off...it was delicious! Next came the Skillet Chicken Parmesan-again a big family favorite, but not one I make often. I made this one with my 14 year old...and to be honest he did most of the work, and it was great!

The best thing about this book is the format-it is easy to follow and it explains any term they might use in a recipe. So it is great for both beginners and more experienced cooks alike.

This book is a winner-hands down my new go to book!

Although I am typically won over by cookbooks with a chatty style and lots of pictures (think Naked Chef or Barefoot Contessa) this cookbook is weaseling its way into my affections. It does have pictures (although they are clumped in to somewhat unsatisfying sections instead of placed near the recipe--which is what really gets me inspired), but more importantly it has recipes I would use. Often.
It is in fact a cookbook of American Home Cooking, but that title was a revelation for me when I opened it to discover how broad and encompassing "American" food can be: Marinated tomato salad, Butternut squash soup, Southern style greens, and Guacamole. This cookbook has widen what I typically think of when considering "American Home Cooking" to incorporate recent trends and tastes. So while the concept of this cookbook is traditional and old fashioned, its appeal is quite modern.
I also wanted to quickly add that it has very nice intros to most recipes that explain (in the style of the magazine) how in their "testing" they arrived at this recipe and why it works. They also include some very nice and helpful "side-bar" photos and instructions for everything from "Keeping Streusel in Place" on muffins (use a cookie cutter) to how to "Stuff a Chicken Breast".
I think this cookbook would be a very nice gift (or personal purchase) for someone who may be learning to cook and wants a comprehensive "go-to" cookbook for their kitchen. That does not however mean that it would be redundant in a more experienced kitchen; we can all learn from reexamining our methods and try some new versions of well-loved recipes that have been tested and considered by the experts in "America's Test Kitchen".

Like a previous reviewer I too am an experienced and long time home cook. How then could I disagree with all three points he made about the layout, the fonts, the material covered, etc.?

I fail to understand how anyone familiar enough with Kimball to want this book would be surprised/distressed by any of the points brought up as negatives. First of all I find it easy to read although many other things are difficult for me to read in terms of the size of the font. I don't, however, use the cookbook or any cookbook in the kitchen. I always type out the recipes on the computer and print them for use and abuse in the kitchen. Then I have them on file, if they are 'keepers', and have easy access to a grocery list when I shop for ingredients.

I bought the book for the commentary and discussion as well as the recipes themselves. There is much to be learned about technique, chemistry, flavors and many other of the details that make recipes what they are. We get to see Kimball's "we make the mistakes so you don't have to" credo played out step by step.

So, the font is not too small for me and I'm a 'senior citizen with glasses'; I don't believe it's small just to accommodate the commentary, and I'm grateful for the commentary. I do not believe that a good cookbook or the best cookbooks necessarily have the entire recipe on a single page. That is a nice feature for sure, but it is one that makes the costs of published books soar.

I'm really enjoying the book; I will read it through before I actually cook, but I've made ATK recipes before and have always been pleased with the outcome.

I enjoy the "Cook's Country" TV program even more than ATK, and am delighted with the cookbook. It's a winner.

An amazingly great down-to-earth cookbook. I will be so bold as to say that America would be in far better shape if every family had a copy of this cookbook and used it. Why? Because in today's tough economy, we need to stop shopping out of boredom and frantically going from one activity to another, and instead slow down and teach our kids that you CAN have fun together as a family at home doing simple things like making breakfast or dinner. Home cooked meals can be the center of a loving home. Wonderful smells and tastes that come from home cooking, can be some of the most lasting and loving memories that your family will have.

This book, thank heavens, is not another `how to cook like a particular restaurant' book, nor is it `how to cook like a celebrity chef'. Instead, these recipes are more along the lines of- how to cook as well as your mother or grandmother. In fact, these recipes allow you to recreate some of the past generations best dishes. The recipes have been tested very well, which means that you don't have to waste time trying to perfect the dish. The authors and editors have done that for you- because this cookbook comes from Chris Kimball and America's Test Kitchen. I found family favorites like Chicken and Dumplings, Skillet Fried Catfish, Skillet Cornbread, Chicken Enchiladas, and Banana Pudding. My husband (who cooks even better than I do) found several versions of Gumbo, and Oyster Po'Boys, Roast Chicken, Chicken-Fried Steak and Texas Sheet Cake.

Many of the recipes are in fact heirloom and traditional regional recipes- ones that I have spent a lot of time and money tracking down so that I could cook dishes like my grandmothers (they just knew how to cook, they did not use a recipe). There are also wonderful dishes I have had from other parts of the country that I just did not feel like I had the expertise to make and have them turn out well, like Monte Cristo Sandwiches.

Oh, and did I mention the Peach Cobbler? And the beautiful pictures? And the terrific tips scattered throughout? And the fact that the recipes are EASY?

Ok, so the cover is a bit - um- boring....but it will soon be coated with flour and such anyway- right? Because this is NOT one to flip through and then leave on the shelf to collect dust....