James Beard's American Cookery [Paperback]

James Beard (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 30, 1980

Food and eating habits have fascinated me throughout my life, and after sixty-five years I have come to the conclusion that perhaps American cookery is one of the most fascinating culinary subjects of all.

Product Details

• Paperback: 877 pages
• Publisher: Little, Brown and Company (September 30, 1980)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0316085669
• ISBN-13: 978-0316085663
• Product Dimensions: 6.5 x 2.2 x 9.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (35 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #290,232 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

69 of 72 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Classic James Beard, July 6, 2001

By 

Rebecca Johnson "The Rebecca Review" (Washington State) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: James Beard's American Cookery (Hardcover)

While reading this James Beard classic, I was amazed at how many recipes truly have become our favorite foods in America. I have been making some recipes for years without even considering that all along, James Beard could have in fact brought them to our awareness. It is equally amazing how many of these recipes made their way over to Africa.

My grandmother purchased one of the first copies and I now have the pleasure of owning it. This truly is a cookbook you will want to read over time. Reading the entire cookbook could be quite daunting were the recipes and notes not so delightful to read!

Each chapter begins with a note from James Beard and continues in a sort of cook's diary style with many recipes on one page. You will find recipes for cocktail food, salads, soups, eggs, cheese, fish, shellfish, poultry, game, beef, veal, lamb, pork, ham, bacon, sauces, vegetables, grains, pasta, beans, lentils, pies, pastries, cakes, cookies, puddings, ice cream, dessert sauces, fruit, bread, sandwiches, pickles, preserves and candy.

If you didn't grow up in America, you will find this cookbook all the more fascinating. You can literally read this cookbook like a novel. I found it fun to sit outside and just start reading it from the beginning, skipping over recipes I didn't find interesting and being amazed at how many recipes I was familiar with and had actually made at some point in my life.

A recipe will often start just so casually, you forget you are reading a cookbook, then suddenly you are reading the instructions and the recipe ingredients are listed on the right or left. This is written in a very personal style and you can truly hear the voice of James Beard in his writing.

If you read a few pages of this book a day, you will find that within a year, you will know so much more about cooking. I also think it is handy to have to look up various aspects of cooking. I can hardly do this book justice by reviewing it, you just have to see it to believe it! I did especially enjoy reading about the 1-2-3-4 cake and finding a recipe for Crullers. I had lost my recipe quite a while back and didn't know where to find another one. You will also enjoy finding many recipes using saffron.

I can almost bet my cooking teacher in high school had this book on her shelf, it does look a bit familiar now that I look at it closely. It is also incredible how much cooking has changed in 20 years, and how much it has stayed the same.

~The Rebecca Review

36 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Twenty Years with James Beard., March 11, 2000

By A Customer

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: James Beard's American Cookery (Hardcover)

I purchased my first copy of this book when it was first published in 1980. After 20 years, and much use, it has fallen apart and I'm ordering a new one. It is one of the most useful cookbooks in my library of over 100 books on cookery and I turn to it every week for a "new" idea - 20 years later, Mr. Beard's cuisine is ageless.

29 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A joy to read!, October 29, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: James Beard's American Cookery (Hardcover)

My copy was just delivered this morning. What an absolute blast to read this book. Mr. Beard's commentaries are not only insightful, but often downright funny!

When writing about eating oysters on the half-shell, he advises, "If you do not like the natural flavor of oysters and find that you must cover them with quantities of red cocktail sauce (which he refers to earlier in the chapter as 'the red mennace'), then perhaps you should not be eating them."

Maybe it's just me, but I find the free injection of personal taste/opinion refreshing.