32 of 44 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A collection of good salad recipes in a mediocre book., June 14, 2005
This review is from: Sensational Salads (Hardcover)
`Sensational Salads' by book assembler and editor, Barbara Scott-Goodman is a great idea with a mediocre realization. Salads are one of those culinary topics which deserves at least one or more great books. What the author has given us is nothing more than a collection of vaguely original salad recipes with poor exposition on ingredients and what I believe are modestly good results.
There are at least four ways in which this could have been a much better book.
The first would have been to begin with an exposition on major salad ingredients, their availability, their tastes, and their affinities with other ingredients. One volume that does this well is my old copy of a `Better Homes and Gardens Salads' volume.
The second would have been to make a point of including all major named salads, including the Salade Nicoise, the chef's salad, the Caprese Salad, Panzanella, Cobb Salad, Salad Lyonnaise, and so on. One volume which comes close to doing this is my old friend the `Better Homes and Gardens Salads' and the `Williams-Sonoma Salads' volume.
The third would be to do salads by the seasons. An excellent example of such a presentation is `Twelve Months of Monastery Salads' by Brother Victor-Antoine d'Avila-Latourrette. This does salads not only by season but also by the month, based on produce that comes into season in each month. The author's introduction pays some lip service to choosing the recipe based on what is available and fresh in the market, but there is nothing in the book which assists us in doing the same thing.
The fourth would have been to devote the time and energy into addressing a single type of salad, such as the `Pasta Salad' by Barbara Lauterbach.
Ms. Scott-Goodman's book has the appearance of a volume on an express to the discount table at Barnes and Noble or Borders. Two signs are the fact that the author's bio gives her virtually no culinary credentials and that the bio of the photographer is longer than that of the author. These are only symptoms. There is nothing to say that a culinary newcomer can't put together an excellent book. Unfortunately, there is little in this book which distinguishes it from the very good to excellent titles cited above.
I will give Ms. Scott-Goodman some credit for organizing her chapters by major ingredient. My sense of the logical is just a bit offended when there are chapters on vegetables and beans. Beans are vegetables! That same sense is also offended by the chapter title `vinaigrettes & dressings'. Vinaigrettes are, of course, just a special type of dressing.
The introduction to the chapter on `Greens' shows a remarkably myopic view of the history of salads when the author describes the archetype for the recently past salads as being a wedge of iceberg lettuce and a bottled dressing. This may have been true of many suburban midscale restaurants, but all the classics mentioned above plus many more have been around for most or all of the 20th century and people enough interest in food to look up salads in a good cookbook would have found recipes for one or more of these classics.
The very first recipe in the `Greens' chapter annoys me just a bit when the first ingredient is `4 cups mixed salad greens'. For the moment, I will forget that you can find cellophane bags of `mixed salad greens' in large supermarket produce departments. Would it not have been better to specify either such a bag of greens or a list of specific greens names such as endive, frisee, arugula, and red leaf lettuce? This same recipe calls for vinaigrette of balsamic vinegar and olive oil, with salt and pepper being tossed in after mixing the greens with the vinaigrette. My first problem with this is that I doubt most people would associate balsamic vinegar with a `classic' mixed greens salad. Red wine vinegar is much more appropriate here, as this recipe is probably most accurately traced to the French cuisine. My second problem is why in the world would you toss in the salt and pepper instead of adding it to the vinaigrette? The very first vinaigrette recipe in the last chapter is simply oil, vinegar, salt, and pepper.
None of these little things mean that this is a BAD book. It is simply a journeyman author's effort that includes fairly good recipes but practically nothing special. There is no spark on inspiration that gives us some extra utility. There is certainly little which justifies the book's title.
All in all, for decent recipes presented in a clear manner with average to better than average photographs, I give it four stars, but suggest you look for something better unless you can get this volume for a steeply discounted price. Other books on the same subject are better. The food is good but the communication breaks down here and there.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
Best salad book ever, August 13, 2009
This review is from: Sensational Salads (Hardcover)
This salad book is great.
It has many differnet sections of salads. Greens, vegetables,fruit,beans,Grains,rice,pasta,seafood,poltry, meat, vinaigrettes, and dressings. It clearly lists the ingredients and clearly list the instructions. I HAVE TRIED A COUPLE OF THESE SO FAR AND ALL OF THEM HAVE TASTED GOOD.
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