Customer Reviews

Great Books for Cooks

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

 

 

I am a freelance cookbook editor, and I could clearly see how Wyler and McLaughlin worked on this volume. It is not their fault that so many wonderful cookbooks have short lives and end up out-of-print before their time. There are an awful lot of cookbooks out there, and it does little good to highly recommend ones that are difficult or impossible to find. There are few "hidden gems" in the cookbook business--most good books stay in print. Also, many of the newer cookbooks are better than their older counterparts because public tastes change. You would be surprised at how badly some books have aged, especially in the visual department (oh, those photos!) As for the inclusion of barely-published books in the list, the explanation is simple. There is an A-List of people who receive advance promotional copies of cookbooks before publication. As McLaughlin is the cookbook buyer for a very reputable chain in the South, he would have get advance copies. I would think that readers would be thrilled to be on the inside track. I agree that Wyler and McLaughlin did themselves a disservice to put their own books in the list. Even though it doesn't look kosher, I have to admit that they are excellent books. How could they leave out Wyler's Simple Stews when it had been nominated for a Beard Award? I've cooked from Wyler's Cooking for a Crowd for years, and many of McLaughlin's wonderful books didn't make the list because they are out-of-print. Anyone who has cooked from their cookbooks will be more generous and forgiving in their evaluation of Great Books for Cooks. VERY serious cookbook collectors can search for out-of-print Time-Life series of cookbooks and treasure their old copies of Vincent Price's excercies in gourmandiese. Give me Wyler and McLaughlin's practical approach.

The authors review more than 500 popular cookbooks that are currently available, and provide their thoughts on the recipes contained in each of them. Yes, their comments are generally positive, but then, that's implied by the title of the book, GREAT BOOKS FOR COOKS.

The authors acknowledge this clearly in the introduction by explaining some of their criteria (e.g.: some cookbooks were automatically excluded if recipes were found to be unreliable). They also note that preferences are, indeed, subjective. Personally, I am very comfortable trusting two successful cookbook authors rather than someone else when it comes to a selection process such as this. (Just for the record, there are only 7 cookbooks written by either of the two authors that are included in the review of 500+ books.)

The book is nicely organized into various categories--general, single-subject, ethnic, baking, TV personalities, etc. The authors mention some of the stand-out recipes from each book, thus giving readers a good idea of whether or not the book will be right for themselves or as a gift for someone else. With tens of thousands of cookbooks available at various mega-stores and on-line, it's high time that people who are experienced cooks and authors helped the rest of us make some sense of all the choices that are available today.

It is also an enjoyable and a highly readable book, and a good addition to all those issues of Bon Appetit, Gourmet, and Cooking Light that we keep on the bedside table for inspiration.

Susan Wyler, one of the authors of this book, has had six of her own cookbooks published. Also, she served as food editor of "Food & Wine" magazine for ten years.

You can be pretty sure that cookbook publishers deluged "Food & Wine" magazine with review copies, over the years. And you can be pretty sure that Susan Wyler saw much of this stream of books. So she's an ideal choice to be an author of this book.

Michael McLaughlin, her co-author, is author or co-author of at least twenty cookbooks, including "The Silver Palate Cookbook," which was inducted into the James Beard Foundation's Cookbook Hall of Fame. Very importantly, Mclaughlin is cooking and life-style book buyer for Cookworks, a gift and gourmet chain in New Mexico, Florida and Texas. So you can be pretty sure that he sees a giant stream of cookbooks too.

The result of the authors' skill and experience is a valuable book. It's not one that you'd read at a few sittings. Rather, it's a book directory for dipping into, now and then. It offers a paragraph of description of each cookbook, plus it recommends a selection of recipes from each cookbook.

It puts each book into one of these categories: general interest cookbooks, regional America cooking, ethnic and international cookbooks, vegetable and vegetarian cooking, low calories, reduced fat and spa cooking, single-subject cookbooks, cookbooks from chefs, restaurants and TV personalities, cookbooks featuring grilling and other techniques and equipment, breads, baking and desserts, good reads, references and cookbook series.

Tremendous numbers of cookbooks come into print and go out again, quickly. The authors were smart to concentrate on books in print and smart to look upstream at books about to be published.

Consider this book more of a reference source of the hundreds of cookbooks that are currently on the market. It's hard to take the authors' recommendations seriously when they also endorse their own cookbooks!

This book is heavily slanted towards books that appeared in the last year or so. Some haven't even been published yet--which makes me suspect that one of the authors is plugging books which s/he edited and will profit by.

Most of the information in this book can be gleaned for free from catalogs like *Jessica's Biscuit.* What's most disappointing about it is the bland prose and uninspired selections. I had hoped to learn about unknown gems or at least find new appreciation for some of my own favorites. No such luck with this p.r. approach to cook book criticism.