`The Ultimate Cookbook' by Bruce Weinstein and Mark Scarbrough is a title which figuratively sticks out its chin and invites one to criticize it for overweening pride. I am happy to say that this book lives up to the promise of its title as well as any 692 page book is able to do. For starters, the authors get an initial allowance for having already written ten other `The Ultimate...' this, that, and the other thing cookbooks, all of which (at least those of which I've reviewed) are, I can say, very decent manuals on their respective subjects, even if I did fail to find a good blueberry muffin recipe in their `Ultimate' muffin book. Thus, they are simply enlarging their franchise on this title. They also deserve much credit for pointing out and delivering on their `all new recipes' claim. This means that they have not just `phoned in' this book by reproducing all the material from their other books. So far, this at least makes them eligible for four stars.
But there is more. Much, much more. I have always believed that one can detect a very good or a very bad book within two minutes of opening the covers and browsing about in the Table of Contents and the Introduction. The symptoms of quality showed up almost immediately, when I saw two sections in the `Fish and Shellfish' chapter on `Thin White-Fleshed Fish Fillets' and `Thick White-Fleshed Fish Fillets'. These are obviously guys who have browsed the fish counter and wondered if the flounder and haddock fillets (thin and thick respectively) can be cooked in the same way.
My mind was made up even before I got past the Introduction, where I read the `Thirty-One Examples of Culinary Shorthand'. This is exactly the kind of section I always thought would be a good idea, but have never seen anyone do it really well, until now!
On the one hand, this is a very good general purpose reference cook book, similar to `The Joy of Cooking', Mark Bittman's `How to Cook Everything', and James Beard's `American Cookery'. It has fifteen (15) chapters on all the essential topics. These are:
Breakfast and Brunch
Appetizers, Nibbles, and Snacks
Salads
Soups
Pasta and Noodles
Bread
Chicken, Turkey, and Other Birds
Fish and Shellfish
Beef, Pork, and Other Meats
Vegetables
Grains, Beans, Lentils, and Tofu
Cakes
Cookies
Pies, Tarts, and Fruit Desserts
Puddings, Custards, Mousses, and Souffles
Now the fact that Maida Heatter alone has written about 1200 pages worth of books on cakes demonstrates that there is no way our fair authors can cover every detail of all these subjects. But, they go about each subject which is demonstrably more thoughtful than many, many other cookbook authors. Their ideal audience is one step up from the Rachael Ray 30 minute meal level (note the four chapters on baked goods) where the reader is willing to read through a goodly portion of the book to get the lay of the land before rushing out to the supermarket. On the other hand, the book is not written for the dedicated foodie who follows the advice of high end chefs and does not decide what they will be making until they see what is good at the market that day. To paraphrase the authors, `you don't want to be guessing what you want to make at 6:30 in the evening as you walk down the supermarket aisles.
So, in addition to the very common advice to read a recipe through carefully before beginning, they add the suggestion to read the recipe(s) before and after the one you want, in the event that something similar looks even more interesting.
I was never a big fan of the authors' technique of giving a master recipe and lots of one sentence variations. If I want my blueberry muffin recipe, I want one that someone has tested, not one which is a fourth afterthought to some generic muffin recipe. The authors do NOT take this approach in this book; however they DO many recipes where they give you a template from which you can create dozens of different results from the same recipe. An excellent example is `A road map for The Ultimate Granola'. Granola has lots of ingredients, most of which retain their particular character in the mix, and many of which are on a lot of people's `least favorites' list. Peanuts and milk are two ingredients which many people need to avoid. And, like me, there are some who don't like either coconut or oatmeal. With this approach, you can concoct exactly what you want, and have it come out better than anything from Kellogg's or Post.
For the more traditional recipes, their descriptions of techniques are virtually perfect. My two favorite touchstones of recipe writing quality are scrambled eggs and omelets, and Weinstein and Scarbrough get these perfectly right. There is even a tip on omelet plating here I have never seen after reading at least 20 omelet recipes. The list goes on and on. Every chapter has its sections full of insights you rarely see elsewhere. And, the book is perfectly willing to get into `difficult' subjects such as recipes for fresh pasta, including six different flavored varieties. I was even surprised to discover they include a recipe for Spaetzle, a very specialized German cross between Gnocchi and dumplings.
So, the book is an `Ultimate' in the sense that it covers everything the average `good' home cook may want to know, given the ingredients available in their local supermarket. It will not replace dozens of other cookbooks, because there are thousands of popular dishes such as Basil pesto, tortilla Espanola, or even classic Caesar salad which are not here, but the book appeals to the person who already has books which include these recipes. If you have to own just one cookbook, this should probably be the one to get!
