Customer Reviews

The Mensch Chef: Or Why Delicious Jewish Food Isn't an Oxymoron

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This is a wonderful cookbook and easy too! I've made the brisket, chicken soup and some other recipes. Brings back memories of my time with my Bubbi!!

I cannot be more enthusiastic about this book. If you want all the yiddish basics, thoughtfully brought together in one book... this is it! For me it is a dream come true... it is the research I would have loved to do, had I the time (well, he saved me the trouble!)
In a time when all the classics are being jazzed up for a contemporary palette... to have these classics simple and unadulterated (possibilities of family variations aside) on record (right down to the shmaltz!) is a gift for all of us!
You won't be dissapointed! mmmmmmmmmm!

I cook and bake a lot, read cookbooks for pleasure, browse online recipes for fun... so I think a great deal about cooking, recipes, and what makes a cookbook great. This one is great: so much fun to read, educational and inspirational, makes you want to get into the kitchen! Davis's writing style is funny, filled with cute anecdotes about Jewish culture and his own family traditions. The introductions to the recipes, the little "advice" sidebars, and the glossary make the cookbook great bedtime reading. But it's also great as a cookbook--the recipes are easy to follow and produce delicious results. I've tried multiple kugel recipes (sweet and savory) and loved them all. His hamentaschen dough produced the best hamentaschen I've ever made! (The dough was a bit hard to work with--very soft and somewhat sticky--but I was gentle and patient with it, and the results were just perfect.) I've made a few great cakes from this book as well. It's also a good reference for Jewish cooking staples such as matzo ball soup, latkes, brisket, etc. All around, a fun and useful addition to the collection.

A side note for anyone looking for a kosher cookbook: this is by no means what you are looking for. Davis mentions substitutions that would make a recipe pareve instead of dairy, for instance, but he is quite glib about proclaiming that the taste of the recipe often suffers. An experienced kosher cook could certainly use their experience and common sense to make these recipes kosher, of course, but it is by no means an introductory kosher cookbook.

In an effort to rediscover my culinary heritage, I was looking for a cookbook for Ashkenazi/Eastern European Jewish recipes and this one fit the bill perfectly. I borrowed it from the library and decided to buy it, I liked it so much. The recipes sound fabulous and he writes with great humour. Chicken soup made from his recipe is currently simmering in the kitchen and the aroma filling my house brings me back to my childhood. Highly recommended!

"The Mensch Chef" is one of my favorite house-warming gifts. It has the best recipes for classic Jewish food: chicken soup, chopped liver, roast chicken, and brisket. My (actually the book's) brisket is hands down the best brisket I have ever tasted. The chicken soup is as good as my grandmother's --which our family considered liquid gold. Everyone I have given this book now treasures it. The roast turkey recipe is delicious --and I've used it for several Thanksgivings. It is so sad to me that this book is now so hard to find. It deserves to be a classic.

This has great recipes for basic, good, old-fashioned comfort food . . . . and it's hilarious to boot!!!