The Yellow Farmhouse Cookbook (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "IN 1938, MY MOTHER spent a summer in a Quaker work camp near Dayton, Tennessee, an area that was still hard hit by the Depression..." (more)
Key Phrases: flour through salt, regular active yeast, whole egg foam, The Yellow Farmhouse Cookbook, Cook's Illustrated, Boston Cream Pie (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Christopher Kimball, editor and founder of Cook's Illustrated magazine, grew up during the 1950s in rural Vermont, where he spent many summers working as a farmhand. His most cherished memories were of the yellow farmhouse, where an eclectic gathering of workers met at noon for hearty meals of roast, potatoes, boiled greens, baking-powder biscuits, molasses cookies, and perhaps a pie. Kimball's memories of this time make for a book that is as good to read as it is to cook from.

Kimball has painstakingly tried and tested hundreds of recipes for those childhood roasts, cookies, apple pies, and other nurturing farmhouse delights. In The Yellow Farmhouse Cookbook, he reworks them for the modern kitchen (olive oil and hand mixers are allowed), while still capturing "the spirit of farmhouse cooking, using simple ingredients simply prepared."

Within each chapter, memories, recipes, and cooking techniques effortlessly roll into one another. In "The Dairy," we are whisked back to Kimball's 10th year, when he milked cows. Back then, "milk was stored in large cans set into a thick metal cooler filled with cold water." This description sets the perfect scene for milky recipes such as an American Baked Custard, several tapioca puddings, chocolate mousses, and cream pies. All adhere to the book's main premise: simple cooking with basic ingredients. Other chapters are solely devoted to meat, vegetables, baking, breakfast, cookies, fruit, and preserving, as well as a buying guide for purchasing the best cookware and kitchen tools. With so much research, and so many recipes and reminiscences, The Yellow Farmhouse Cookbook really is an act of culinary love and devotion. --Naomi Gesinger

Review

What sets The Yellow Farmhouse Cookbook apart ... is Kimball's experimental streak.... The charts and commentary on kitchen equipment are easily worth the price of the book... -- The New York Times Book Review, William Grimes

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 416 pages
• Publisher: Little, Brown and Company; 1st edition (November 2, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0316496995
• ISBN-13: 978-0316496995
• Product Dimensions: 10.2 x 7.2 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #210,140 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Very Dependable, January 16, 2002

By	jumpy1 (New York, NY) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

A NYC Chef, I took this book with me when going down south to cook for 2 older southern gentlemen because I was informed under no uncertain terms that I would have to cook old-fashioned American country food. This book turned out to be very dependable. I am intrigued by the less than satisfactory reviews of the book. He definitely backtracks on some of his recipes in the Cook's Bible (he tells you where) but he also talks about how he improved the recipe here. To be sure, I have modifications in mind for my own taste on several of the recipes, and find the "master recipe" concept for things like mashed potatoes amusing, but this book's results are very enjoyable home-style cooking. One major feature for me was that I've been used to the organic produce and variety one finds in NY, but there, that wasn't available. These recipes came through because they are written for what one can find in a grocery store anywhere in the country.

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best recipes, great stories: it's all in one book., December 2, 1998

By A Customer

This is a fantastic cookbook if you want the best of American cooking. It's also two cookbooks in one. For me, it is first an invitation to smart cooking that gets results every time. After reading the cookbook and with the holiday season, I decided to make pie for company for the first time. Three terrific pies later (one friend said it was the best pie he had ever had), I know this is a reliable recipe. And now my friends think I am an expert on pie! These recipes work because Kimball finds the right balance between health and taste.The second aspect of the cookbook is the collection of stories that you want to curl up with in front of a fire. After reading the stories, I want to keep cooking. Kimball brings with the recipes the smell and taste of American cooking. Most of my cookbooks are gathering dust - they are just hollow renditions of recipes, some of which work, some of which don't. This one is at the center of my kitchen: I can trust what Kimball says and I can read a good food story before I start chopping vegetables.

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Entirely dependable and entirely wonderful, May 25, 2002

By	Catherine S. Vodrey (East Liverpool, Ohio United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

There is great comfort for any cook who finds a cookbook author he or she likes: you know what to expect, you trust their judgement and their recipes, you like their voice. That's the case with Christopher Kimball and me.

Christopher Kimball founded and still edits COOK'S ILLUSTRATED magazine. I always learn something from COOK'S. Its laconic, thorough approach is Chris incarnate, and this unfussy spirit is echoed in "The Yellow Farmhouse Cookbook" as well. With its yellow-checked cover, an old-fashioned typeface (Poor Richard, perhaps?), and illustrations reminiscent of woodblock prints by Rockwell Kent or Barry Moser, this is a conscious visual effort to call up the gentle past.

The recipes, however, are anything but nostalgic. Chris flatly debunks assumption after assumption about recipes we thought we knew. He is a demon tester, and has charted wonderful new paths to the same old dishes, making them bright and newly delicious in our mouths. Several "Yellow Farmhouse Cookbook" recipes have become family favorites in my home (especially the scalloped potatoes, which get requested on practically a weekly basis). This book is a stroke of good fortune for any home cook.