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Review: Joy of Cooking
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Joy
of Cooking
By Irma S. Rombauer, Marion Rombauer Becker, & Ethan Becker ISBN: 0684818701 Publisher: Scribner Publication date: Nov. 1997 Format: List price: $35 (Canada, UK) | ||||
| Type: Comprehensive | |||||
| Sample recipe: Salmon Pâté | |||||
| Ambitions | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| intended audience: | novice | advanced beginner | good home cook | gourmet | professional |
| apparent goal: | stocking stuffer | sampler | comprehensive | Biblical stature | coffee-table |
| competition: | outclassed | also-ran | midrange | strong challenger | leads the pack |
| Content | |||||
| # of recipes: | <50 | <100 | <200 | <300 | >300 |
| practical recipes: | <20% | <40% | <60% | <80% | >80% |
| # of ingredients: | <3 | <6 | <9 | <12 | >12 |
| ingredient hunt: | 7-11 | pantry | supermarket | online | airfare required |
| recipe complexity: | baby steps | simple | medium | intense | professional |
| instructions: | inadequate | bare bones | full figured | educational | verbose |
| time conscious: | outright lies | speed of light | fairly quick | takes time | takes all day |
| photos/drawings: | skimpy | adequate | generous | instructive | glorious |
| recipe results: | dorm food | casual food | family meals | fancy food | fit for royalty |
| flavor quotient: | disappointing | fair | good | delicious | exceptional |
| Format | |||||
| layout: | ick | cluttered | clean | kind to cooks | work of art |
| legibility: | microscopic | challenging | adequate | clear | brilliant |
| production quality: | cheesy | questionable | years of service | gift-quality | stunning |
| value: | ouch! | a little pricey | on the money | excellent | worth splurging |
| Ease of Use | |||||
| page numbers: | invisible | hard to find | spotty | adequate | obvious |
| table of contents: | missing | frustrating | passable | useful | helpful |
| index quality: | none | tragic | adequate | good | excellent |
| page flipping: | infuriating | tedious | acceptable | rare | never |
| Author | |||||
| writer: | hack | cook turned writer | writer turned cook | comedian | auteur |
| cook: | self-taught | non-restaurant | chef | teacher | celebrity |
| Summary | |||||
| overall rating: | fair | good | above average | excellent | Ochef Top 100 |
| Comments: So a committee came together, scrapped 85% of the earlier edition of Joy of Cooking, came up with new recipes and new procedures, and this 1136-page book is the result. Seriously, for anything put together by a committee to come out this good is nothing short of a miracle. If you had to limit yourself to only one cookbook, this would be a strong and viable contender for most anyone.
The book is thoroughly up to date, reflecting the way people cook now. Yes, the committee maintained the JOC convention of stringing procedures and ingredients together in paragraph form, which some people love and others, um, appreciate less. And beyond a few decorative line drawings, there are no pictures. But the book is still full of essential cooking information that you'd have to buy a half-dozen other cookbooks to accumulate otherwise. And so what if it took us five years to review the book? It just took us a long time to realize that while we'd love to have a 1955 Thunderbird, it is a lot more practical to have a modern car to drive on a daily basis (we wouldn't mind a new Thunderbird, either. Are you listening Ford?). And just as we refer frequently to earlier versions, the new Joy of Cooking deserves a place on everyone's cookbook shelf. |
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