Customer Reviews

World Vegetarian Classics: Over 220 Essential International Recipes for the Modern Kitchen

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This ambitious book has plenty of glossy pictures and is filled with details about ingredients and their origins. The authors present a variety of recipes. No matter what your taste - you will likely find something that will catch your eye. The recipes are relatively do-able, not so exotic that they're seem impossible to make in real life.

The downside is that it will never serve as a comprehensive collection of your favorite ethnic recipes. Theres just too much to cover. Its a good solid starting point, albeit slightly pricey, for everything from mashed potatoes to satay sauce.

One of my very favorite cookbooks. Once you adapt to Eggplant being called Aubergine and other British terms (measurements are given in both forms), the book offers a broad variety of easy, flavorful, and sophisticated recipes very far from heavy, blah vegetarian food. Dishes like the Walnut Pasta and Mango Curry offer new flavors from around the world - curry leaves, for example - and look gorgeous, just like the beautiful pictures. Blue Corn Blueberry Pancakes, Mushrooms Paprika, and Zucchini (Courgette) Slice from Australia are just a few of the recipes that wow my friends and guests. Makes cooking fun, sensuous, and heartfelt using fresh vegetables - the best flavors there are!

Even though I am an avid fan of steak, my partner is very much vegetarian and has been for over 5 years. When we started dating, we bought this book because although we both love cooking, I had no idea what to cook a vegetarian for dinner. From the first page, this book had us hooked and our mouths were watering. This book is totally different to the "standard" vegetarian cookbook as it deviates away from the traditional soup + comfort food + meat recipe without meat or homely old style or one pot cooking aspects you usually find in the genre. Brooks-Brown looks around the world chapter by chapter and includes only recipes which are traditionally vegetarian, replicating them to make them accessible to home kitchens. As a non-vegetarian I think this is refreshing because I don't get the feeling that "although that dish is divine, it would be better with meat" - the dishes are supposed to be meat free and taste best that way.

We have cooked almost half the recipes, and all but one was simply superb (the one was our fault - we left the rice cooking too long). Generally, the recipes aren't quick and easy, so we use them when we have time to spend an hour or more making dinner. However, the effort you spend is represented in the rewards because the food is simply delicious. The author takes the time to explain intricate details which help to make the recipes special - including historical details for the dishes, tips to make them cook perfectly and ingredient explanations by region.

In terms of recipes, the Thai Green Curry is exquisite, the Mushroom Risotto to die for and the African banquet options are endless - our favourite is South African Dried Fruit Curry with Pacha Rice, a rice and vermicelli mix which is delightful to make and to eat, and which everyone raves about! Other favourites are the Walnut Pasta, Lemon and Herb Fettuccini, Ethiopian Chickpea Stew, the Argentinean Easter Torte, and Welsh Breakfast Sausages. Brooks-Brown has managed to make complex dishes with complex flavours easily achievable at home. The book has emphasis on cooking from scratch, so be prepared to chop herbs and grind spices to make intricate flavours balance beautifully. I don't think it is easy to try all the recipes in this book -some of the ingredients are hard to find, even with good access to Asian/Indian/African supermarkets and arguably Australia's best fresh produce market less than 15 minutes from home as I have here in Melbourne. This is a consequence of the authenticity and indigenous accuracy of the recipes.

Every time we get this book out, my partner's parents develop a keen interest in the smells and sounds of the kitchen and they always want a taste of whatever results! We've been told "you guys are wonderful cooks!" but all credit must go to this book. We have a stack (about 20) of other vegetarian recipe books lying around and this one is easily the best for authentic restaurant quality dishes. It has become somewhat of a food bible around the house.

To write a cookbook of world vegetarian classics is ambitious, but Brown does as well as could be expected in a single book. Amazingly, she takes us on a culinary tour of the globe that includes favorites from both the expected and less frequented parts of the globe. Because of this, you get a single book that covers not just countries like France and Mexico, but also Armenia, Australia, Mauritius, and many, many more making for a diverse collection. I especially enjoyed the introductions she provided to each recipe to give you more context as well as the mouthwatering color photos throught the book. The recipes also turn out perfectly giving you the confidence to try more and more things from the book. So far I have especially enjoyed the macaroni baked in yogurt and the mushrooms paprika. Both morphed everyday ingredients into interesting and flavorful meals.

However, this book is not just about recipes. It also has some very educational sections to help you become more well versed on cuisines throughout the world. Each region features an interview with an expert in that region's cuisine as well as pages focusing on the common ingredients of that area. Not only is it interesting to read about the different ingredients the pages also include color photographs and notes about how and where the ingredients can be found. For example, she notes in a section that while a particular ingredient can be found fresh in the country of it's origin it's most likely to be found canned elsewhere in the world. Anyone who has had to go on the hunt for an unusual ingredient and wasn't sure where to find it or what it would even look like will find this section invaluable. It makes the cookbook an excellent resource even if you already have cookbooks from that particular region.

As previous reviewers have noted, the book is written from a British perspective but includes measurements in metrics and US systems as well as alternate names for items in parenthesis. For example, she commonly calls for "kitchen paper" or something to that effect, but thanks to the parenthesis I was able to figure out she was actually talking about paper towels.

Overall this book is quite the home run. It showcases how diverse and delicious vegetarian food can be and educates the reader about cooking and ingredients all over the world in the process.

This is my favorite cookbook. The beginning has a world map marking where each recipe is from, and each section has an intro that describes common ingredients used in that region. For a world cookbook, the ingredients are easy to find, and often very inexpensive. The recipes are simple to follow, and a few have become such standbys that I have them memorized. My favorites:

Kosheri

Borscht

Mild Basil and Lentil Stew

Best cookbook I own--buy one!

I love this book. I finally gave in and purchased it after years of checking it out at the library. Sometimes ingredients can be hard to find, but the author describes exotic ingredients at the start of each regional section. It's nice, though, to have a book with recipes that are not trying to replace meat, but rather recipes that are naturally meat-free. Overall great book.

the recipes are not exceptionel.

as an experemeted cook i would recomend you to find something more elaborated as a cook book.

I've been looking forward to receiving this book but now that I have it in hand I'm disappointed and even angry. I expected that a person writing a book on world vegetarian classics would not only have a handle on vegetarian cuisine, but also on classic cuisine and world geography.

First, the blatant geographical gaffs. Brown has a chapter on "North America and Canada" as if Canada is extraterrestrial to North America. Then she separates out Mexico and the rest of Latin America in a different chapter called "Latin America and the Caribbean". Both Mexico and Canada are parts of North America; second, most modern sources also include Caribbean and Central American countries as part of the continent. (Don't publishers have fact-checkers these days?)

Second, her definition of "classic" includes "2 Serving as the established model or standard" and "5 Of a well-known type; typical." I know the foods of Canada. While cranberries, maple syrup, and wild rice are native foods, the recipes Brown has included are atypical, unstandard dishes. Two of the three recipes are completely new to me.

If I cannot trust her geography and I cannot trust her rendition of the cuisine I know, how can I trust the rest of the book?

It's pretty; I love having colored photos with recipes; these are the only redeeming qualities I've found to date.