Ballymaloe Cooking School Cookbook

Review: An Absolute Gem from the Emerald Isle

Ambitions
		*Darina Allen's Ballymaloe Cooking School Cookbook* By Darina Allen ISBN: 1589800362 Publisher: Pelican Publication date: 2002 Format: Hardcover List price: $45 (Canada, UK)
Type: Comprehensive
Sample recipes: Traditional Roast Rib of Beef with Gravy, Horseradish Sauce, Yorkshire Pudding, and Roast Potatoes
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	decorative	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	adequate	years of service	gift-quality	stunning
value:	ouch!	a little pricey	worth splurging	on the money	excellent
Ease of Use
page numbers:	invisible	hard to find	hard to read	adequate	crystal clear
table of contents:	missing	frustrating	passable	useful	great
index quality:	none	tragic	adequate	good	excellent
page flipping:	infuriating	tedious	acceptable	rare	never
Author
writer:	hack	cook turned writer	writer turned cook	collaboration	auteur
cook:	self-taught	non-restaurant	chef	teacher	celebrity
Summary
overall rating:	fair	good	above average	excellent	Ochef Top 100
Comments: This book is as good as cookbooks get. We are embarrassed that we let it languish on the review table, thinking it was just a big Irish cookbook. It is a cooking school in a book — a comprehensive cookbook of global stature (including worldwide recipes), teaching important techniques, informing about a host of ingredients, and counseling (but not preaching) on freshness, seasonality, quality, and nutrition. Allen’s book is also charming and unpretentious. Some recipes or explanations might be ever so slightly out of range of novice cooks, but for anyone else, it includes recipes and information that will make anyone a better cook. If there’s anything to quibble with, it’s that the text is a little small, but we recognize that if it were any larger, the added pages would make the book impossible to lift. There are relatively few photos, but they’re stunning, and a few make you want to hop the next jet to Ireland. Darina Allen’s Ballymaloe Cooking School Cookbook is on par with Julia Child’s The Way to Cook (and that is a statement we do not make lightly and have not made about another book) — only it has many more recipes.