Customer Reviews

The Fort Cookbook: New Foods of the Old West from the Famous Denver Restaurant

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

 

 

This book works for food like Claire McCardell worked for American sportswear; mix and match, it all makes you look good, and it's not tough to pull together. Good value, spices up the dinner options easily, will impress your friends and in-laws enormously. It's enhanced by the stories that the author weaves through it, making it so much more than just a cookbook -- more of a picaresque tale of "How I Ended Up Running A Restaurant When All I Really Wanted Was A Good Sportscar." Highly recommended.

While it is true that some ingredients require a little effort to find, the Fort Cookbook is a tremendously entertaining, historically illuminating and just-plain-fun cookbook. I have made several recipes from it, and have encountered good results. BTW, some hard-to-find items may be found at Homebrew stores ("sour salt" aka citric acid, juniper berries, etc.)

Can't wait until my travels bring me back to Denver, so I can try the real McCoy!

The cookbook is very interesting. It does have quite a few gamey recipes that I will never use - but I knew that going into the purchase, as I borrowed it from the library first -- I knew exactly what I was getting. It has fascinating recipes, good stories to go with it and some history. Anyone who is a cookbook collector would appreciate the book! Going through the book just makes me want to go to the local Fort Restaurant even more!

This is a cookbook that has already become a family treasure and my mom and I have an extensive collection of many different kinds of cookbooks. Needless to say, a cookbook that gives you history of the area that their restaurant is located, plus the history behind all of the fascinating recipes that are in store for the reader/cook is a real gem to own. Two finger lickin' thumbs up.

I've had a copy of the cookbook that I bought through Amazon for a couple of years. This copy was bought as a gift for a friend who lives in the east. I thought she would enjoy having some western and southwestern style recipes... and I was right. Out of print, but there are used dealers on Amazon who have new copies at a good price.

This book is obviously a restaraunt promotion, and alleged cookbook. The reason I call it an alleged cookbook is because the author mixes hard to find ingredients with directions that are sure to make the home cook fail, thereby ensuring that the cook will have to come to The Fort restaraunt to sample the recipe. Here is the list of some of the hard to find ingredients in his cookbook. Sour salt, buffalo, elk, tamarind, verjuice, malagueta pepper, devils claws,damiana, and guinea hen are among just some of the hard to get ingredients. To be fair the book does have a section on where to get some of these ingredients, and the book does have merit in that it has interesting facts about old Western, and especially Southwestern cooking, and it gives many ideas to an experienced cook. Some of the good recipes are Pittsburgh steaks, Green Chili steak bowl, barbecued steak, Martha Washington's chicken grains of paradise, potted buffalo, and beef with caramelized onion, beet salad, a excellent succotash recipe, numerous flans, a ice cream cake, and chocolate chili cake. Sam Arnold claims to have a library of 5,000 cookbooks, and manuscripts from the old West, and this book sort of annoys me, because I'm sure he could come up with a better cookbook, if he really wanted to. For example, he mentions the ingredients in Washtunkala stew, but does not give an account on how to make it. Self-promotion is more important than useful help for the home cook. I also disagree with Sam Arnold in his preparation of a couple of classic recipes. His Country Captain recipe only has a small fraction of the bell pepper, and onion needed, and leaves out the white pepper, and parsley entirely. His barbecue sauce is good, but when I make his barbecued steak, I'm going to use Stonewall Jackson barbecue sauce, the best barbecuse sauce ever made. Barbecue sauce should not have ketchup, or Worchestshire sauce in it. I really have a pet peeeve with recipes for chili that do not have tomato in them. Do not let Texans tell you that chili con carne does not have tomatoes in it. The original recipe for chile, by Mary Alcedo does include tomatoes. I seriously doubt that 1 cup of chili puree, and 1 teaspoon of Mexican oregeno can make 4 pounds of pork taste anything but bland. His recipe for chili doesn't even have cumin in it. If I was going to go to the trouble of stewing down 4 pounds of pork shoulder than I would much rather make a southern style barbecue, or a Brunswick stew.