Customer Reviews

Easy Family Recipes from a Chinese-American Childhood (Knopf Cooks American Series)

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The title of this cookbook is what attracted me to it in the first place. As a Chinese-American, I have rarely found - especially since I now live in a small New England town - excellent and authentic Chinese cooking that compares to what my mother used to make. And unfortunately, since she suffered a stroke last year, I've been unable to reproduce the many wonderful dishes she used to feed us, since she kept them all "in her head." Ken Hom's cookbook brought back wonderful memories. I have raved about this cookbook to my brothers and plan to make gifts of it. My Caucasian husband truly loves these recipes also. The first dish I made reminded us both so much of my mother's cooking that I almost cried. Hom's dishes are flavorful, delicious, authentic, and relatively easy to make. A trip to a Chinese market for some ingredients is required for many of the recipes, but it is well worth the trip! Anyone who loves quality Chinese cooking and finds the standard, Americanized, often tasteless dishes you get in so many "Chinese" restaurants unpalatable (unless you happen to be lucky enough to live in NYC, DC, or SF), will love this book! Please try it - this is what quality Chinese cooking is all about!!

For most of my adult years I have been "haunted" by memories of my mother's wonderful "down-home" Chinese cooking. Chinese restaurants just aren't able to deliver the simple yet exotic and delicious meals that lots of us remember from our Chinese-American childhoods. In my attempts to recreate my mother's cooking I've purchased many Chinese cookbooks (to her absolute horror! she's never used one)--- but I haven't needed another cookbook since lucking onto Ken Hom's Easy Family Recipes. This is a fabulous cookbook! The recipes are wonderful they recall the nameless dishes I loved growing up. While my classmates were eating Mrs. Pauls Fishsticks my brothers and I feasted on Steamed Trout with Fried Garlic and Black Bean Chicken with Bitter Melon and Aromatic Garlic Squid and on and on and on. As an added bonus-thanks to Ken Hom- I have now learned to order properly in Chinese restaurants---a tricky feat as Chinese mothers don't always name their dishes--leaving one at a disadvantage when it comes to ordering similar dishes in a restaurant! My Caucasian husband loves the recipes also -- especially since few of the recipes call for unusual fungi or herbs. If you're interested in learning to cook Chinese dishes or want to add some authentic dishes to your repertoire--then get this cookbook. Like I said, he delivers!

There is very little left to say about this book. I agree with all the glowing reviews and would like to add my 2 cents! Last year I gave my parents a copy of Grace Young's new book The Wisdom of a Chinese Kitchen. My father said thank you very much and he handed me this book and said this is real food for real people - and he was right! In this book the meals of my childhood have been replicated! Ken Hom gathers up an amazing treasury of recipes. They are easy to follow, not overly complicated, and offer an easy dose of comfort food.

Major Book Award for Ken Hom and BBC Worldwide

The prestigious Andre Simon Memorial Fund award for the best food book of 1998 was last night given to Ken Hom for his book "Easy Family Dishes: A memoir with recipes " published by BBC Worldwide last October. His editor Viv Bowler (Lifestyle Group, UK Region) accepted the award on his behalf.

This is the most prestigious cookery book award of the year - for which Ken has previously been short listed twice. Easy Family Dishes doubles as an autobiography and a cook book and tells the story of Ken's upbringing as a Chinese American in Chicago. Eighty-five cookery books were entered in all and the short-list included top names such as Nigel Slater, Madhur Jaffrey and Nigella Lawson. Josceline Dimbleby, who presented the award, described the book as beautifully written, endearing, informative and unique. Ken's book enters into the André Simon hall of fame.

Seamus Geoghegan, Director, Lifestyle Group, said: "This award is a testament not only to Ken's enormous writing and cooking talents, but also to the editorial expertise of Viv Bowler who worked so hard to get this title - a non TV tie-in which several other publishers were interested in. BBC Worldwide is often regarded exclusively as a TV tie-in publisher, but this proves that we can be just as successful with books that aren't linked to specific series. We have worked with Ken for over 15 years now and are delighted and proud to be the publishers of the first of his titles ever to win an André Simon award."

This is the cooking of my own childhood, and I'm very happy that Ken Hom has put these recipes into this very personal book. He includes anecdotes from his own childhood as well as those from other Chinese Americans. I use this cookbook regularly and have my own favorites. I agree with "Ms. Reese" that there tends to be an over-use of salt, but I simply reduce the amount of salt or cut it out altogether when soy sauce or other salty seasonings are used. For those who are nostalgic for the food of their Cantonese mothers and grandmothers I recommend two other titles: My Grandmother's Chinese Kitchen, by Eileen Yin-Fei LoMy Grandmother's Chinese Kitchen: 100 Family Recipes and Life Lessons and Every Grain of Rice, by Ellen Blonder and Annabel Low Every Grain of Rice: A Taste of Our Chinese Childhood in America. The former has old photos which parallel those in my own photo albums, and the later has beautiful illustrations. Both contain remembrances of growing up Chinese American.

I think this is a lovely cookbook, I love to read it, but I've made a few recipes that were WAY TOO SALTY! And I love salt! The first time I thought I'd gotten spacy and just added salt twice; the second time I wondered. Too bad because this is a very practical book for a home cook who wants to try Chinese cooking without spending hours preparing.

Winner of the prestigious Andre Simon Memorial Award as the Best Cookery Book of 1998.