Customer Reviews

The Wisdom of the Chinese Kitchen: Classic Family Recipes for Celebration and Healing

5 star:		(43)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

As an American Born Chinese, finding this book was a huge relief. Like so many ABCs, I love the food of my culture but certainly didn't know how to prepare it. This is an authentic down home Chinese cookbook. No fancy dishes here - only comfort food need apply. The book is divided into the following: 1) rice from steamed, fried, dumplings and porridge 2) stir fry - including tomato beef and beef chow fun 3) steamed cooking- egg custard, sponge cake, spareribs with black bean sauce 4) cooking with ginger - drunken chicken, cabbage noodle soup 5) seasonal market dishes - braised taro and chinese bacon, stir fried bitter melon with beef 6) celebratory dishes - stir fried clams with black bean sauce, pepper and salt shrimp, sweet and sour pork 7) New Year's dishes - turnip cake, seasame balls 8) authentic recipes from the homeland - savory rice tamales, pork dumplings, stuffed noodle rolls 9) Chinatown favorites - soy sauce chicken, roast duck, barbecued pork and salt roasted chicken 10) a slew of healing soups and dishes. Reading it was a trip down memory lane for me. The dishes are truly authentic to the Chinese family experience and or those who seek authenticity, Young has presented it here. She also includes a handy guide to shopping and mail order resources!

Having been born in Hong Kong and having lived there and in Taiwan for the first 15 years of my life, this cookbook brought back vast memories. I love cooking, and have a wide range of cookbooks. But until now, I have never come across a Chinese cookbook that captures so much of the "essence" of Chinese cooking as in Ms. Young's "The Wisdom of the Chinese Kitchen." Reading this cookbook is like looking back into my childhood and how I grew up. I am astounded at how accurate Ms. Young described all the traditions the Chinese attach to food. The section on Chinese New Year is especially meaningful to me; all the dishes are ones that I ate as a child during Chinese New Year. It was indeed a nostalgic moment for me as I read it.

I have tried several of the recipes, and the results have been excellent. What I find most helpful is the glossary and the pictures of the food items that are more unique to Chinese cooking. With this aid, I can now go shopping at an Asian supermarkets with much more confidence.

In all, this is a terrific tome that takes away some of the "mysteries" of Chinese cooking, and in turn, allows everyday cooks like myself to be able to enjoy Chinese home cooking.

I bought this cookbook about 6 months ago. When I finished reading the book, I immediately sent an e-mail to the author thanking her for her work in this book. I also watched the CBS Sunday Morning Special about this cookbook. I ,too,was a Chinese immigrant and learning cooking from watching my dad and mom without any measurement of the "stuff" you put in a dish. Often as I cook, I do not measure the ingredients. Many of my American friends want the reciepes of the dishes I cook and too often I am too lazy to write them down. Now, I have Ms. Young to thank you for writing this cookbok. Many of the fine reciepes in this cookbook I shared with my Amercian friends. They too have read and said they enjoy the history and the philosophy of the Chinese cooking. I would recommended this book for anybody who is learning about Chinese cooking. This cookbook by far are on my number one list of the chinese cookbook of this decade. Oh, by other way(Ms. Young), the most frequent reciepes that I shared with American friends is "Tomato Beef." Your brother was right! (You should not omit this receipe.)

I own over 300 cookbooks and this one has vaulted into my "top 10 of all time" due to Ms. Young's lovely balance of well-written memoir, in-depth cultural, technique & ingredient information, and wonderful, no-compromise recipes. _The Wisdom of the Chinese Kitchen_ ranks with the best works by Wolfert, Field, Kaspar, Thorne, etc. - books that are more than mere "cookbooks" but reveal some of the soul of the cuisine/culture in question. And did I mention that the recipes actually *work*? ;-) Thank you Ms. Young!

My parents are from Hong Kong and I was born in Canada. I grew up with the foods Ms. Young describes in her book, but because of my limited ability to read Chinese, I have never been able to follow any Chinese recipe books written in Chinese. When I first bought this book, my aunts thought it was pretty funny. They said "how can a book that is written in English be authentic?" - and considering my spoken Cantonese is accompanied with a fairly strong "Canadian" accent, they were sure the book was full of "westernized" Chinese foods. Well, after looking through the book themselves, they were sold and bought their own copies.

The recipes are good. But what I find most helpful is the inclusion of the Chinese name for the dishes and some ingredients - written in Chinese characters and translated phoentically into "English"(between the combination, I can usually figure out the dish or ingredient and relate it back to what my Mom used to prepare).

My wife and I came from Hong Kong a LONG time ago and we miss a lot of the Chinese dishes. We found most of them in this book and we had been using it quite often. The instruction is clear and dishes are relatively easy to make. However, I would like to see more pictures (of the final product and the preperation steps) in the next edition. We like the book so much that we purchased multiple copies as gifts to friends.

Highly recommended. If there are more pictures, I will give it a 5.

Grace Young's cookbook bought back memories when I was a little girl growing up at home. My mother's cooking was the best, but I couldn't duplicate it precisely. Now I can with the help of your book. Especially the egg custard my mom use to make. It was a simple dish but yet delicious and one of my favorites.Your book is wonderful and simple to follow cookbook for Cantonese cooking. I enjoyed reading the history and the childhood stories you had relating to your parent's cooking. Now that my parents are elderly all the receipes will be lost if I don't write them down. Grace Young will save me the work because her book is precisely the one that I can use as a reference and guide to help me cook the way my mother cooked. Simply delicious and wonderful.

I feel that Grace Young have put together an excellent cook book with history of cooking recipes from her large families. Its a great reading book, with all its old traditions. She has captured all the generations, and generations of our ancestors very unique and techniques in preparations of the Chinese meal. Cooking a Chinese meal means to put in a lot of time and preparations. This brings back lots of old memories of myself helping and cooking with my mother. We learned at a very young age to mainly help prepared if not the actual cooking, which sometimes its more important than the actual cooking the meal. For this is the art of preparing that Grace Young have actually describe in her book. I aso enjoyed the selected topics of each chapter of the book, especially the one on chapter 3, "The Meaning Of Rice" is very interesting and to the point of what is important in a Chinese meal. Its a great book to have and to keep with all its philosophy, traditions and great and simple recipes that I think anyone can follow. "The Wisdon Of The Chinese Kitchen" have been very well written and put together for easy and enjoyable reading, and of course the simplicity of her recipes. Great job Grace.

Growing up in Chinatown, my family ate Cantonese food pretty much every meal, every day. When cooking Chinese food on my own, I try my best to mirror how my parents cook because there are no written recipes to follow. With this book, there are finally written-down Cantonese recipes that a real Chinese family would cook at home and are perfect for those people who want to cook like mom & dad used to. Most of the recipes are for everyday dishes such as Steamed Pork Cake with Salted Duck Egg, Stir Fried Egg with BBQ Pork or Soy Sauce Chicken. But there are also a few special occasion recipes such as Shark's Fin Soup. Extremely helpful is the index/description of common and not so common ingredients and their Chinese characters/ Cantonese pronounciations for those who don't speak Chinese. I couldn't attest to the 100% accuracy of the history behind the dishes as other reviewers have been critical of, but I'm just looking for recipes, not stories. Eileen Yin-Fei Lo's The Chinese Kitchen is okay but seems more complicated so I find myself gravitating to Grace Young's book more. If you prefer Chinese food like you find at a mainstream American Chinese restaurant, then you'll probably be disappointed with this book. This is a good book to buy if you're interested in Cantonese food that goes beyond Cashew Chicken and Sweet & Sour Pork (both authentic Cantonese dishes and found in this book - but taste very different from what is found in most restaurants). A valuable find!

Having been born in Hong Kong, and spoiled by my mother's cooking as well as the culinary delights available in HK - you can imagine my delight to find this cookbook gem. I have bugged my mom incessantly for the secrets to her recipes, sribbled them down, but just don't have the time to get them 'all'. I've searched high and low, but have only been mildly successful in finding that ultimate Chinese cookbook. THIS cookbook comes very close to what I grew up with, and I was very happy to try the recipes out.

This book is very authentic, very 'homestyle', very certain to please.

To comment on Singapore noodles and Mike Simms.... who cares about its 'authenticity' and their 'heritage'? Those who enjoy Singapore Noodles enjoy them because of how they taste, and most likely couldn't care less that they are not 'really' from Singapore. It's still comfort food for many of us who grew up in HK - and I look forward to testing this recipe out. I have no doubt that Grace will come very close.

Let us not get caught up on semantics and just enjoy the cookbook, it's fabulous authenticity and the great dishes it produces!