Customer Reviews

Falling Off the Bone

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I'm an average cook so all the help Jean Anderson provides: the wonderful ingredient combinations, variety, and easy to understand step by step instructions are just what I need. I made Taverna Lamb and Kalamata Stew for my family and it was WOW!! Ms. Anderson is with you all the way and gives you the confidence to keep trying. This cookbook is an absolute must for everyone.

"Falling Off the Bone" is a fabulous book if what you want are over 160 recipes for the kind of home-cooked dinners your mother used to make (or you wish she had). For me, these soups, stews, meat loaves and other slow-cooked beef, lamb, veal and pork dishes offer up comfort three ways.

Comfort #1: The aroma that fills the house feels like love itself. And since I've already put everything in the pot and walked away to do other things it seems like someone else is making me dinner.
Comfort #2: Dishing up and diving into a luscious beef bourguignon or a succulent lamb stew or a tasty plate of glazed spareribs. Wonderful!
Comfort #3: These recipes make enough food for a family, and since I live alone I get several more meals out of one effort! How great is that? Usually I treat myself to another serving later in the week and freeze the rest in portion sizes.

Jean Anderson really knows how to cook, and in this book she makes it easy and affordable for anyone old enough to turn on a stove.

What's more comforting than sitting down to a plate adorned with slow-cooked, flavor-packed meat so tender, that often no knife is needed? As the weather begins to cool and fall takes over, the stockpots get dusted off and slow cookers plugged in. Jean Anderson talks you through each and every step, in very clear terms, to making your table a respite from the cold. As with any of her books, you can trust the recipes and they taste like home.
Each chapter opens with information to educate even experienced cooks on cuts of meat and where they come from. Jean has taken affordable, and often overlooked, cuts of meat and turned them into magnificent meals. With these recipes warming up your kitchen, no one will guess the economy is still storming outside.

Let me start off by saying I absolutely love the art of the braise and any slow-cooking method that transforms so-called 'lesser' cuts of meat. So I was eagerly anticipating this book, only to be extremely disappointed by the completely misleading title and cover art. Of the 163 recipes in "Falling Off the Bone", only 42 actually require meat that has a bone! I know not every single recipe need HAVE a bone in such a book, but for the vast majority of recipes to ask for 'boneless' or 'boned' cuts of meat, the BONE should not be featured so prominently in the title and the picture. I was looking forward to a book full of recipes like the beautiful bones on the cover... only to be met by a metaphorical compendium of boneless dishes. A better title would have centered around what the book has in vast number, which is variations of the same stew. Stews and Hot Pots, maybe? The most 'bones' are located in the pork section, due to the rib recipes found there. But there are only 3 recipes for veal that have a bone! (If you're looking for a BONE to chew, look for Jennifer McLagan's Bones: Recipes, History, and Lore. Also, not all bones, but great recipes, see Molly Stevens' All About Braising: The Art of Uncomplicated Cooking.")

My other major gripe about this cookbook is that it is supposedly designed to save the cook money, geared as it is toward utilization of those 'cheaper' cuts of meat. While boneless chuck roast and spareribs may be cheap, I challenge anyone to even be able to FIND a "boned and rolled and/or butterflied veal rump", never mind trying to acquire it for a steal. And if I have to "ask my butcher to make a pocket for the stuffing", my cost is still rising. Also, "lamb neck slices" may be easily procured wherever Jean Anderson gets her meat, but are impossible to find for most people. So while I would love to make some of the recipes (bone or not!), they are CERTAINLY not going to save me any money once I have to special order them from "my butcher".

Any arrival of a new Jean Anderson cookbook is a joyous event, and this one is no exception. Chock full of incredible recipes using the "lesser" cuts of meat (Those which cost less and are full of flavor), the first problem the reader has is which one to cook first? I just start at the beginning.

There are certain things you can be certain of when you see Jean Anderson's name on a bookbook. The first is she actually wrote the book, not a given in these days of ghost written cookbooks. You can be certain that all recipes have been well tested by her in her Chapel Hill home. Envy those lucky folks who come in for lunch to taste and rate the recipes. You can be certain that all recipes are clearly written with logical directions. And you can be certain that all the dishes will be delicious.

With the cooler weather upon us, what an autumn culinary offering this beautiful book is.

I give it 5 stars and would give it more if I could.

It is disappointing to me how very shallow this book is in general--or basic--information on the different slow cooking techniques for the large variety of tougher cuts of meat. I was hoping for (pardon me) more "meaty" information--tips, rules, personal experience--on the different slow cooking processes. To the point, I was hoping to be taught and I was not. I was hoping for more information on the different tougher cuts of meat and how best to cook them, (or how not to cook them). For instance, what cuts can be substituted for others? What best size "large" dutch oven to use for cubes, slabs, roasts? Why use one temperature in this recipe and a different temperature in the next recipe? How do I adapt my recipe to work with a thinner or thicker cut, or a roast that weighs a pound more than called for? How high up the side of my dutch oven should the liquid come to--knowing that my "large" pot might not be the size of your "large" pot?

The book has plenty of "tips", but why give tips on how to boil an egg or cook rice, or why to use time-saving sliced mushrooms or bagged baby carrots, when Ms. Anderson could have really zoned in on more pertinent tips on slow cooking or tough meat cuts?

I was hoping to see some recipes for some of the more unusual cuts of meat like beef cheeks, beef neck, tripe, tongue, etc. There are a lot of recipes for cubed beef chuck and cubed pork, but not so much for chuck roasts or pork shoulder roasts. Why not?

And, I want to point out that while the book is full of recipes for inexpensive cuts of beef and pork, it is also full of very expensive veal and somewhat less expensive lamb. In other words, not all the recipes in ths book are economical. And there are recipes for special cuts that you will have to get from a specialty butcher and those cuts will not be inexpensive either.

Don't get me wrong, I still like the book and am glad I bought it. To me, it was worth the expense and the time it took to read through it. And I've made several recipes from it in the two weeks I've had it--and the family has enjoyed them. I was looking for alternative recipes for slow cooking beef, pork and lamb, other than those tried and true recipes to whick I have always turned--and I've found many in this book. I wish I could try the many veal recipes, but we don't get veal in our part of the country and paying the high prices for mail order is not in our budget. But this is NOT A FIVE STAR BOOK.

I love roasts, soups, stews, and meat pies. How about you? Not only do they taste great, they can be very nutritious, and always stretch our food dollars a bit further. Because we can take our time cooking these dishes, they can use cheaper and tougher cuts of meat that will be especially flavorful and tender when cooked properly. And properly does NOT mean complicated. Most of the dishes in this book are drop dead simple to cook. But you have to select the ingredients properly, prepare them simply, but correctly for the cooking time involved, and you have to get the heat right for the time you want to cook them. For example, a simmering braise results in tender meat. A boiling braise results in tough meat.

Jean Anderson has put together a really nice collection of recipes on how to cook these tough but cheaper cuts of meat so they are wonderful. She has a section each on beef, veal, lamb, and pork. She explains why veal isn't beef and why baby beef isn't veal or beef and you probably don't want to use it anyway.

You simply must read the first chapter in the book before diving into the recipes. It is simply called "How to use this book". She takes you through the basics of tenderizing meat, how to select ingredients and why getting the just right is critical to the deliciousness of the outcome of your efforts, a tour of common seasonings and spices, measuring tips, and a few short cuts. She also talks a bit about the vessels, the neat toys you can use to save yourself time and make the work a bit easier. A useful few pages of information you can use for this book and your other cooking, as well.

At the beginning of each section she discusses some basics about that type of meat, its nutrition profile, the USDA grades, how and where to buy it, how to store it (including freezing), and the best way to recycle leftovers. She also offers a basic diagram of where the cuts of meat used in this book come from on the animal (she calls it "where the tough cuts are"). She also lists each cut with a brief description of its characteristics and the kinds of dishes it is best suited for.

Each of the recipes has an introductory paragraph explaining why she included it, some tips about what makes the recipe work well, and how she may have tweaked it from where she got it. She then lists the ingredients and how they should be prepped. She then lists the steps you need to follow to make it work. As she notes, prep everything before you begin. Read through the steps a few times to be sure you know exactly what you are trying to accomplish and when things need to come together. While these are usually long cooked dishes, some of the steps require coordinated short time cooking. So, be clear in your mind about exactly what you need to do when. Many of the recipes are accompanied by a very beautiful photo of the finished dish. When I look at these photos I not only get hungry for the dish, I want to make it RIGHT NOW!

She also includes an appendix of sources of information on the web, where you can buy specialty ingredients, and websites to local farms and markets.

Enjoy this book! Anderson has done a lot of wonderful work for us, so let's make and enjoy some great food as a way to thank her.

Reviewed by Craig Matteson, Saline, MI

[...].

Falling off the Bone, Jean Anderson (Wiley Hardcover; $[...]; October 25, 2010)

Let me start off by saying how much I love meat. My husband and I got married VERY quickly (I'm talking under a month quickly) and he always says that on our elopement evening, he breathed a huge sigh of relief when I ordered my steak.....rare. Its nice to know that my steak preferences are the ties that bind us. Kidding.

Our love for meat has been one that is adoration from afar for a few reasons. The fat content, the price, the overall "not healthy" more than once a week. Then along comes Jean Anderson and her book focusing on the less expensive, leaner cuts of the bunch. Now that leaves me with only one reason....I can totally live with ignoring one reason. So on to the cookbook review.

Falling off the bone contains 163 recipes that focus on cheap cuts of meat and how to make them 'tender' (hence, the falling off the bone title). I personally tried the oxtail and will have the ossobucco post coming up soon, and I can report that the recipes were very easy to follow. The mise en place in some of the stews seems to contain a large quantity of the veggies, but this probably explains the amazing flavor that my oxtail had (after I got past the rear end visuals).

Falling off the bone is divided into four parts: beef, veal, lamb and pork. It features not only the recipes, but informative sections as well. Including, basically, an idiot's guide on how to use the book, along with specifics on the veal, pork, and lamb cuts. Things that someone like me would love to know, but don't want to start an hour long conversation with the butcher.

The photography is beautiful. Every few pages you are graced with another photo that convinces you to try the recipe.

On to Jean Anderson. She has written over 20 cookbooks, articles for Bon Appetit, Food & Wine, Gourmet. She is a member of the James Beard Cookbook Hall of Fame and a founding member of Les Dames d'Escoffier and the New York Women's Culinary Alliance.

And she took time out to answer some of MY questions (which I am very honored and grateful).

For interview ~ [...].

I found several of the recipes to be a bit repetitive and sometimes a bit obviously simple, but it's still a good reference book for ideas on something new to try in in a dutch oven.

I took this book out of the library and I am probably going to buy it. Every recipe looks great, I made 2 and they were really good. I love that she uses inexpensive cuts of meat, the seasoning & herbs are terrific. Its all main courses, I hate cookbooks with wasted space on appetizers & desserts.