The Elements of Cooking: Translating the Chef’s Craft for Every Kitchen
The Elements of Cooking: Translating the Chef’s Craft for Every Kitchen Modeled on Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style, The Element of Cooking is an opinionated reference work destined to stand alongside the shelf among the great works of the kitchen: On Food and Cooking by Harold McGee, Escoffier, The Joy of Cooking and the CIA’s The Professsional Chef. Unlike those monoliths of the kitchen, this book is slim, clear and very to the point: here are the things you need to know how to do, here are the words you need to speak the langauage of food, and, most importanly, here are the ways you need to think about an approach food, the absolute essentials that every, not only good but great, cook knows.
Just as Strunk and White sits on the desk of every student and professional who has to write a sentence, The Elements of Cooking is destined to be the go-to book for any amatuer or professional cook. It defines terms, offers the basic ratios of important preparations (sauces, cakes, etc.) so that you will never need a recipe again and provides countless, simple chef’s “secrets” that every home cook should know.
In eight introductory essays, Ruhlman has pared down the essentials of great cooking: understanding how to salt food; making stock; making sauces; using heat properly; working with eggs; having the right tools (there are only 5 essentials); what to read and use as a resource; and lastly, and most importantly, the use of finesse, that extra attention to detail that turns food glorious.
Simply written, this is a book that can be read in an afternoon and it’s lessons be practiced for a lifetime.
Customer Review: Elements
From stocks, sauces, salt, ghee to Nage- a court like bouillon or anromatic liquid. This book has all the facts and terms that you will come upon when looking at recipes. I learn about food sources I never knew about before picking up this book as well as some old ones that gave me new insights to my meal I prepare. Good for anyone who cooks.
Customer Review: worth a look, but for me ultimately unfulfilling
This book is a great idea, and in many respects lives up to what it aims to achieve. It teaches an understanding of cooking rather than a parrot-recipe-imitate approach to food, but unfortunately, one thing you quickly learn is that other books are better at the ‘how and why’ approach to cooking such as On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen.
This book presents an attitude that I endorse, but doesn’t provide the knowledge or the understanding to change cooking practices. There is not much that I am able to do better having read the book. Perhaps I may change cooking stock in a pressure cooker, but while the book details the preparation of veal stock it doesn’t really detail the disadvantages of other methods. Unlike Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style , this book does not have a left-hand column(common mistake) and right-hand column(correct way). Neither does it have a section on the “principles of composition”, which would be very useful. The second and main part of this book is a useful glossary of cooking terms, but not a “how and why” on common cooking scenarios.
This is no Strunk and White, and while it is opinionated the author relies heavily on the knowledge and authority of others to communicate his ideas. There is much of “so and so does this” instead of a “because of this, do this to get that”, which I would have preferred. There is name dropping and an assumption that some jargon terms are understood.
The book guides the reader in the right direction, but leaves him with little substance.
While I give it three stars now, this book may stay with me for some time as a reference, and I am glad that I now know what books to buy next.
Tags: Cooking book, Food book, cheap Cooking book, cheap Food book, cheap Wine book, Wine book
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