Customer Reviews

The Cuisines of Asia: Nine Great Oriental Cuisines by Technique

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I have to confess that since the advent of the Internet I have not bought many cookbooks on paper, but I use this one more than any other. Jennifer Brennan has grouped the recipes not by country or cuisine, but rather by cooking style - stir frying, deep frying, etc. The recipe for Kung Pao chicken is the best I've ever tasted, the Malaysian curry rolls are to die for - those are just a few of the recipes in what is truly an outstanding cookbook. I've broken the spine on mine - maybe I'll have to get a new copy!

Brennan's recipes are delicious and authentic, but this book is much more than just recipes. There is plenty of background on the countries and their cuisines; a great glossary of asian ingredients; menu suggestions and index of dishes by country; and instructions how to substitute for the more esoteric ingredients. True, coconut milk and tamarind are not so hard to find anymore - but the substitutes are still more economical, and you're just as likely to already have them in your pantry. Most important are the spices, but once you stock up on those you're ready to go. Follow Brennan's istructions as closely as you can - and they are very clear and quite simple - and you will be assured authentic tastes and delicious results. I thoroughly enjoy this book, and highly recommend it.

`The Cuisines of Asia' by Jennifer Brennan is every bit as wonderful a book as its 541 pages for a mere list price of $17.95 will lead you to expect, given the detailed subtitle promising coverage of China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, The Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam, by technique, including Barbecuing, Currying, Deep-Frying, Noodling, Simmering, Steaming, Stir-Frying, and more.

Wow. All of this gives me great expectations, especially compared to pricy tomes such as `Hot Sour Salty Sweet' by husband and wife team, Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid. I am therefore really surprised to find some very noticeable weaknesses in the book.

The first one which everyone may notice is the somewhat weak writing. Ms. Brennan falls into the `most favored nation' trap where she praises the great attention to food and its preparation given by a particular nationality, as if no other country, let alone the culinary powerhouses of France, Italy, Turkey, and Austria ever paid special attention to food and hospitality. This may be the dark side of the very salutary fact that Ms. Brennan was born and raised in India and loves the Orient as much as the most dedicated Italian food writer loves the Mediterranean. This means she writes with great warmth about her subject, leaving her text rich, but just a bit less scholarly that you may be lead to believe.

Some of her culinary details are also just a bit suspect. I was very puzzled by her recommending a heavy cast iron wok. Most of my authorities on wok cookery, especially the estimatable Grace Young in `The Breath of a Wok' cites that the very best wok is made of thin carbon steel. While heavy iron will hold heat very well like the famous black cast iron skillet, it will not heat up quickly, certainly not as quickly as a very thin metal. And, to be thin and strong, you need steel.

I was also puzzled by her lapse with the Filipino cuisine and the adobo dish I happen to know very well. All Filipino cookbooks as well as my Filipino relatives treat chicken adobo as a braise. Ms. Brennan starts it as a stir-fry. She also does not mention the adobo dishes in her overview of Filipino cooking, even though the adobo braises are often described as the national dishes of the Phillipines.

On the other hand, her coverage of specific techniques is superb, especially as she covers techniques you will not find in many a better Western cooking text.

I highly recommend this book for anyone who can approach it with a critical eye and who does not wish to invest in books covering Filipino, Malay, Korean, and Indonesian cooking as well as Indian, Chinese, Thai, and Japanese cooking.

This is one of the best cookery books I have ever read and used. It is clear and informative, and provides a lot of useful material.

One of the few cookbooks that I own, that I've ever worn out. I came to Amazon to purchase the hardcover after my multiple retaping of the paperback was just getting to hard to deal with. This is a wonderful cookbook filled with great recipes.