Product Description

The Cook's Canon is Raymond Sokolov's pick of the recipes essential for culinary literacy. He provides crystal-clear recipes for 101 classics, from Apple Pie to Zabaglione. Each iconic recipe is paired with a short essay -- historical, ethnographic, chemical, physical, and often very funny. Readers who know their way around the kitchen will rediscover what got them into food in the first place, and they can feast on witty morsels of the origins and significance of these beloved dishes. Neophytes will find a short and brilliantly informed survey course in The Cook's Canon, a liberal arts education for the palate.

The Cook's Canon celebrates great and fundamental food ideas from all the world's great and fundamental cuisines: French, of course, and Chinese, but also Italian, Moroccan, Thai, Indian, English, and German. While no short-list of favorites could take in the thousands of fabulous things human beings have learned to cook since the first genius chef boiled water over fire, Sokolov's canon is an indispensable, satisfying, and inspiring introduction (or re-introduction) to the world's culinary classics.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #503403 in Books
• Published on: 2003-11-01
• Released on: 2003-10-21
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 272 pages

Amazon.com Review
The Cook's Canon: 101 Classic Recipes Everyone Should Know is Rayomond Sokolov's tenth book. Add to that his years of magazine and newspaper columns devoted to digging down to the roots of a dish or food tradition and you have a man who knows a thing or two. Drawing on his own taste and ideas--and his concern that a current generation of talented food enthusiasts, amateur and professional alike, don't seem to know much at all about the evolution of the food we eat and take for granted--Sokolov has come up with 101 recipes he thinks everyone should know and understand. He's looking to "train the palates of a generation whose connection with traditional food has been short-circuited." The recipes he has chosen, then, are classics accompanied by "historical and cultural and sometimes scientific information that tells in some depth where they came from, what they meant to the people who first ate them before they spread to other societies, and why they are importa! nt to us now."

Since Sokolov is writing for an English-speaking readership, he has chosen the recipes that reflect that prejudice, Euro- and Gallocentric recipes for the most part, with a tip of the hat to China, India, and Morocco. For those inclined to argue with the choices, Sokolov says so much the better, "because that will mean that you have thought passionately about the subject." He begins with Apple Pie and ends with Zabiglione. In between, in alphabetical order, you'll find the likes of Chicken Adobo, Doughnuts, Jambon Persillé, Osso Buco alla Milanese, Pork Vindaloo, Shepherd's Pie, Suckling Pig, Terrine of Foie Gras, and Vinaigrette. His notes accompanying each recipe are entertaining and informative. --Schuyler Ingle

From Publishers Weekly
Sokolov, former food editor of the New York Times and author of The Saucier's Apprentice and Great Recipes from the New York Times, throws down the gauntlet, rejecting all things fusion and trendy and touting tradition. While he leans toward French and Italian cuisine with dishes like Choucroute and Saltimbocca alla Romana, Sokolov includes American favorites like Apple Pie as well as international dishes that have made it into the North American repertoire like Tamales, Tempura, and Poori. The 101 recipes were selected for their fame and influence, or because they "represent whole categories of food-cannelloni for pasta, blanquette de veau for stews." Comparing himself to a professor teaching Shakespeare, Sokolov can come off as stodgy. He includes token non-Western dishes, like Hong Kong Salt Shrimp, with a sense of colonialist entitlement. Organized alphabetically, this "canon" is easy to use, but leaves the reader with no sense of continuity except for Sokolov's authoritative voice. In the end readers learn that the line between "old" and "new" has been illusory all along-Profiteroles au Chocolat, included here in their nouvelle cuisine form as dessert, began as an unsweetened main course, which Sokolov recommends bringing back. The best parts of this book are the well-researched, amusing introductions to each dish; this will be of interest to food historians and cultural mavens, who, ironically, may find it most useful as a jumping-off point for new creations.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Literary types argue endlessly over what books are essential to an educated person. Now Raymond Sokolov has thrown down the gauntlet to challenge cooks to devise a better list of core recipes than the one he's created in The Cook's Canon. Cooks may quibble over a few dishes Sokolov has granted magisterial status, but for the most part, his selection proceeds from good taste and sound reason. The uninitiated may at first wonder why some dishes have made the list. Few outside the professional kitchen currently recognize billi bi; yet, on reflection, this soup is the perfect marriage of sea (mussels) and land (cream). Macaroni and cheese, humble though it may be, makes the list, even though the version Sokolov cites will no doubt conflict with some folks' childhood memories. This canon may be accused of being Eurocentric, but there are plenty of Eastern dishes: Goa's pork Vindaloo, Lebanon's kibbeh nayeh, China's Peking duck. Missing are African dishes, for example, bobotie, and Chinese classics on the order of steamed dumplings and ma po bean curd. And among the Italian canon, why pasta and beans, but no Bolognese sauce? (The quick version in the lasagna recipe does not substitute.) But such dissent and controversy are the whole point of creating a canon, and Sokolov's list is sure to enliven many dinner parties. A must purchase for public libraries. Mark Knoblauch
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