Customer Reviews

Poland's Gourmet Cuisine (Hippocrene Original Cookbooks)

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It is a rare and precious pleasure to read the recipes of a clearly talented Chef without the self-promotion that normally goes with it.

Lussiana's interpretation of the Polish kitchen reveals a fascinating picture of unspoilt lakes and game filled forests. It is clearly not the ingredients which have provided an image of a heavy cuisine, but the cooks who handled them for here the theme is lightness - with a Polish accent.

A truly original and inspiring book, both to cook from and to savour.

The book is beautifully illustrated and edited with some potenitally interesting recipes ideas such as beetroot creme brulee. The main idea behind the book is to provide nouvelle cuisine gloss to the good old traditional Polish cooking. However, the book does not carry through this idea very well, resulting sometimes in strange and extremely costly recipes which cannot be afforded by an average cooking enthusiast. Lussiana recommends many fine ingredients, but the way he combines them suggests that he does not really understand their chemistry. Perhaps the trouble is that he is very new to Polish culture which he needs to understand thoroughly to make his new ideas compatible with it. A reading such as Gary Rhodes' "New British Classics" could serve as an excellent example of new and exciting ideas based on a real understanding of centuries long British traditions and culture topped up with the chef's true talent and passion for cooking.