Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
A decent book for 'window shopping' cheeses, but timid in places, August 20, 2007
This is a very enjoyable little book.
Strengths:
* Lots of very appetizing pictures - very good for 'window shopping' for new cheeses.
* There's a decent section in the back of the book that includes some classic recipes involving cheese, from around the world. Some of them are actually very good.
* The book is reasonably well organized, and the cheeses are listed alphabetically, by country of origin.
Weaknesses:
* Too short. There are a lot of cheeses that the author omitted to save space. Why save space ? I'm a paying customer, so show me the cheese ! I want more, more, More, MORE, MORE.
* I wish the author included some useful cheese ripeness judging & handling tips for the reader. Take camembert for example - rather than telling the reader of the textural and aroma clues to look for in order to improve your chances of picking a ripe one, and how to optimally handle/store it when you get it home in order to ripen it a little further ... the authoress cops out and recommmends you just rely on the cheese merchant to pick a ripe cheese for you. Well, my experience is that most cheese merchants just ask you what you want, and then cut and serve you whatever they have, ripe or not. Skilled and informative cheesemasters are a dying breed - even at gourmet markets with a halfway decent selection. Being an educated consumer is even more important in such circumstances.
* The chapters on American and New Zealand artisanal cheeses are way too skimpy. The authoress focused primarly on French & UK cheeses. Recent events (re: GW2) have raised a lot of anti-french sentiment in many countries, and as a result, the local cheese (and wine) industries in said countries have been blooming, as sales of French products decrease. Production of goat and sheeps milk cheeses, here in the US, have been seeing a very noticeable boost in recent years ... and the book doesn't reflect that. You'll have to turn to more recently published books on cheese in order to get a more accurate picture of the cheese making scene in America. It's not exactly a boom ... but selection has definitely improved in recent years.
* The author's front section on cheese production is a bit skimpy, but then again the title says this is a book for COOKS, not cheese makers, so that's to be expected. Still, I wish there were more.
* The authoress is a bit timid and obsequious in describing the flavor/bouquet of various cheese ... almost as if she were afraid to offend the cheesemakers being written about. For instance, she's describe a Pont L'Eveque (see photo below) as, say "unique", rather than (more accurately), as pungent/stinky. I mean come on - I simply ADORE stinky washed rind cheeses ... the stinkier the better. If it's stinky, TELL ME, so I can look for it. PLE, Stinking bishop, Limberger, it's all good. Referring to something as merely being 'unique & distinctive' renders the description useless. A reader shouldn't have to read between the lines. If it's stinky, and smells like dirty socks, mushrooms, sulphur and horse sweat, then say so. Don't mince words in order to be PC.
In any case, despite the book's short comings, I'm giving it a 9, because it's helped me to discover several cheeses that I previously hadn't had before, and to better refine my cheese selections for various sauces, dishes, and platters.
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