The Big Fat Duck Cookbook (Hardcover)

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Editorial Reviews

Review

'What fun it is to follow in this gastro-wizard's footsteps' Observer Food Monthly --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

Review

"The Big Fat Duck Cookbook is the biggest (10 pounds with box), the most expensive ($250) and the most flamboyant (four brightly colored silk marker ribbons, uncountable full-page color illustrations and gatefolds, mainly caricatures of Mr. Blumenthal gliding through a dreamland of foods) cookbook in a bumper year. But like its author, who turns out to be a clear and even affecting writer, there is gravity holding the rocket in orbit. In the back, you will find deadly serious essays on such matters as the effect of heat on meat protein or "ice cream science," by himself and his entourage of university food scientists along with detailed rundowns on new kitchen tools such as refractometers. But all of this is stagesetting and infrastructure for the recipes with the wacko names, the sci-fi techniques and the eureka tastes and flavors... Makes you want to call Bray immediately to get a table at the earliest opportunity, which is two months from now. Meanwhile, there's the book." - Wall Street Journal

“The Big Fat Duck Cookbook is itself a work of art, combing a luxurious package with striking page layouts and artwork. Its recipes are almost the least of its appeal: Blumenthal's accompanying essays are the meat of the text and make for a fascinating 500 pages of reading.” - Metroland (Albany, NY)

 

"I have never been so captivated, visually, by a cookbook (my own books excluded, of course), primarily by the illustrations, the playfulness of them, the exuberance of spirit they convey.  A brilliant move to include these.  The food photography is stunning, I think, because it’s so big and Blumenthal’s food is so dramatic... Huge congratulations to Blumenthal and his team for this over the top, way over the top, effort." - Michael Ruhlman

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 532 pages
• Publisher: Bloomsbury USA (November 11, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1596915501
• ISBN-13: 978-1596915503
• Product Dimensions: 16.6 x 12.8 x 3.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #18,298 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

41 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fitting testament to a fascinating fellow..., November 15, 2008

By	Curious Cook - See all my reviews

The Big Fat Duck Cookbook

This book is an accomplishment worthy of telling Blumenthal's tale of discovery and evolution. It is in fact exactly what I had been looking for every time I had previously purchased an overgrown coffe-table cook book... usually to be let down by the quality, format or content.

Those three aspects: quality, format and content drive the perfect rating I served up. The book is weighty, with high quality paper so thick you will swear that two pages are between your fingers, not one. I seemingly always have trouble with book bindings that fall apart... not this time: the Fat Duck is quite well bound with marker-ribbons for placekeeping.

The art inside is a blistering barrage of jazz-era, inked sketches of Blumenthal at various stages of discovery superimposed upon vividly colored, intriguingly compelling and sometimes darkly disturbing swaths of imagery. If asked prior to reading the Fat Duck, art in a cookbook would have been the component I consider least important to it's overall success. In contrast, here the art is an essential component, almost like theme music that drives audience emotional investment in a theater performance. The photographs are also of exquisite quality and sharpness, even when comprising the entire page.

The Fat Duck is formatted into three sections: History, Recipes and Science. The history section (~125 pages) is a autobiographical tale that really emphasizes how unique Blumenthal's journey has been. His amazing priority of food exploration and inquisitiveness come across clearly in this section. The conversational, fireside manner of the discussion makes it eminently readable.

The recipe section (~300 pages) has each item prefaced with a background tale of discovery and evolution. I found this to be fascinating snapshots of the creative process; they also provide some continuity if the reader elects to peruse the book from front to back instead of hopping from recipe to recipe. These prefaces were exactly what I had been hoping to find when I purchased the El Bulli cook book (latest one) some time back, only to be left lacking. Fortunately, the Fat Duck does give insight into the recipes, where El Bulli directs the reader to some incomprehensible series of images on a separate CD or to a complicated meal engineering schematic. Again, here Blumenthal's conversational prose and intuitive approach provide something that is lacking from many other cooking texts (I find Thomas Keller to also have a great writing style, if that helps you to gauge what I prefer). The recipes have lots and lots of information, and in this respect Blumenthal certainly lives up to his creed that a great recipe has all the pertinent info splayed out for the cook, so one doesn't have to imagine what takes place between the written steps.

The final section (Science; ~80 pages)is a series of chapters describing in fantastic, but readable, detail such topics as Meat Cookery, Ice Cream Science, Fat Duck Restaurant tools/instruments and ingredients. Next comes a series of vignettes from notables and hoary scientists from the field of food science. In full disclosure, I am a scientist so perhaps I am not the best judge of how approachable these sections are, but I feel its about on the level of "Scientific American" articles; i.e. a reasonably intelligent, but unfamiliar reader will have no trouble. I think it speaks volumes that Blumenthal decided to publish a family/child cookbook as his first attempt; that fundamental priority to educate drives this publication as well.

The table of contents is a fold out four-page peek into Blumenthal's brain (literally!). It isn't to be missed.

Finally, the content: As a fellow who worked in restaurants for >10 years before returning to school and eventually becoming a scientist, I am ecstatic to see my twin loves, food and chemistry, brought together in such an over-the-top book. This book continues a recent trend toward popularizing and demystifying Molecular Gastronomy that includes such works as Grant Achatz' Alinea and Keller's Under Pressure: Cooking Sous Vide.

In a nutshell, The Fat Duck is a grand attempt to capture a bold persona, a cooking revolution and a sensible approach to flavor design all in one book. In my opinion, it succeeds on every level.

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The most astounding cookbook!, November 25, 2008

By	Bradley Nelson (Minneapolis, MN) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This book is pretty symbolic of how Heston Blumenthal cooks: it's done to perfection. The book is incredibly massive and filled with beautiful photography and brilliant artwork.

The first third of the book is the entire history of the Fat Duck, which includes a lot of Heston's philosophies about food and engaging the senses.

The middle of the book is packed with recipes, many are famous, some are not, and a couple never made it onto the menu. Each dish includes some background, and complete, exacting recipes for every component. These are not simplified for home cooks and call for many obscure ingredients and pieces of equipment. These are the exact recipes used in the restaurant.

The last third of the book is a veritable textbook of food chemistry, with articles by a handful of scientists who have worked with Heston over the years. For disciples of Heston's style of cooking, this will likely be the most useful part of the book.

The price tag may seem steep, but for any serious cook, it is an invaluable tome of information. While the Alinea cookbook was very sterile and straight-forward, the Fat Duck book is much more engaging and playful. And besides, it's pretty much the ultimate coffee table book for foodies.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A $35 version of book coming in the fall!, June 2, 2009

By	Jackal (Singapore) - See all my reviews

Heston has an (scientific) obsession for making the best tasting and best looking food possible. This obsession is likely to make him legendary.

This is a cookbook for a small minority of customers. You must have an interest in molecular gastronomy methods. You must have a budget that allows you to eat at expensive restaurants. You must like odd people that don't conform to all the norms of society.

As other reviewers have pointed out the recipes are extremely complicated. A lot of details are given, but you should be prepared to shell out a couple of thousands of dollars on (used) equipment before you can get started. The book has some pictures of the dishes, but could do with more descriptive pictures.

However, this is just not a glossy book to boost the ego of its author. I find the discussion around taste, chemistry and visuals relating to each recipe very interesting. You really get a look into Heston's thought process. I don't think Heston has used a ghost writer. I would imagine this can inspire both professional chefs as well as amateur cooks, if so inclined. One place to start experimenting might be with the whisky gums, which don't require any expensive equipment.

Heston's general approach is to perfect a dish. You can set out to do something similar given your budget constraint. If you don't have a professional vacuum sealer maybe try with cheap 100 dollar device, and see what happens. Or my might use a vacuum cleaner to suck out the air of the bag. The only thing you need is time!

There is one other audience for this book and that is people interested in the creative process in general. The long biographical essay describes an obsessive person setting out to do something creative. It is written in a fascinating manner, if and only if you are interested in the creative process. Actually this section could serve as ispiration for some young people to follow their intuition rather than go for a very safe career. For this type of reader, I can also recommend Adria's "A day at Elbulli".