James Beard's American Cookery
by James Beard
List Price:
Our Price: $8.99
You Save: $17.00 (65%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $4.17 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: James BeardEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1980-09-30
ISBN: 0316085669
Number of pages: 877
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Book Reviews of James Beard's American Cookery
Book Review: OK, But Not Great
Summary: 3 Stars
According to the editorial material, this is Mr. Beard's definitive cookbook. He is a culinary journalist of the highest caliber, and this is his penultimate collection of recipes gathered over multiple decades of culinary journalism. While it might be an impressive compendium of recipes, it is no better than many other cookbooks of similar intention. It is an interesting historical document, but is also a rather mediocre culinary resource, despite its distinguished pedigree. Considering the author's celebrity status, I was rather under whelmed by this cookbook. I do recommend it, but not enthusiastically. It does function as an all-purpose cookbook for today's typical home cook, but you can do better.
La Cuisine: Secrets of Modern French Cooking
The gold cook book
The Fannie Farmer Cookbook: AnniversaryThe Joy of Cooking Standard Edition: The All-Purpose Cookbook (Plume)
Selected Recipes from the Saturday Evening Post: All-American Cookbook
American Heritage Cookbook
New Cook Book (Better Homes & Gardens New Cookbooks)
The Good Housekeeping Cookbook
There are 2 distinct aspects to this cookbook. Over time, it has been widely hailed as important cultural anthropology. It is also an extensive compendium of home cooking. Neither aspect is especially convincing, but together, they make a decent culinary resource. Its main strength: for those who like to 'entertain at home' (OK, this an archaic term also from the era of the 'housewife'; by this, read: superbowl sunday, sunday dinner with the neighbors, baby showers, cocktail/diner parties, celebrations where food is expected, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Mother's/Father's day, etc.), and you need a source for reliable, decent recipes that will feed a crowd.
The recipes themselves are the weak point of this book. Mr. Beard has openly cribbed recipes from far and wide, and expertly assembled them as the good journalist that he is. He has a tendency to present several recipes that are only marginally different. This is a good sign, inasmuch as this indicates that the author has significantly altered the original recipe to fit a mold that he knows works correctly, and it also indicates that the author has tested it or a similar recipe (`authentic' is not one of the words I would use to describe the recipes). On the bad side, it means that the scope of the recipes is not as comprehensive as you might think by counting recipes or pages. There are substantial gaps, including entire categories of recipes you would normally expect to find in such an all-purpose cookbook. It also means that much of the original techniques in the recipes have been filtered through Mr. Beard's au courant (circa 1970) sensibilities. I am also not convinced that ALL of the recipes have been thoroughly tested by Mr. Beard.
I also note a couple of format deficiencies. The recipes do not specify the yield; you have to read the recipes closely to discern how many servings the recipe makes. The TOC of this book is woefully inadequate: it simply lists the chapter title. The chapters are thoughtfully divided into sections and subsections, but these are not listed in the TOC. You are more or less obligated to leaf through an entire chapter, which can be 100 pages long, to find something specific, or try your luck prospecting in the index.
The copyright of this book is 1972. It is mainly a collection of recipes of `home cooking' from the 50's and 60's. During this period, all females were `housewives', who did not go to work but instead got married, stayed at home, cooked, cleaned, and raised children. On the good side, the typical `housewife' had acquired substantial cooking abilities (not unlike the abilities expected of a newbie line cook applying for a job in a smallish restaurant) much superior to today's household, regardless of sex. There are many such collections of recipes, and Mr. Beard's effort is only fair to middling when compared to the competition. On the down side, this book has its share of recipes that are incomplete or vague, requiring the experienced touch of a `housewife' to make the recipe work correctly.
On the good side, this book is a valuable source of culinary anthropology, and it is this aspect that has made this cookbook justly famous. Throughout the book, Mr. Beard regales the reader with stories of what Americans ate, why they ate it, and how they prepared it. While this may be important to a writer or culinary journalist, it is at best an amusing anecdote for the typical home cook.
Summary of James Beard's American Cookery
Food and eating habits have fascinated me throughout my life, and after sixty-five years I have come to the conclusion that perhaps American cookery is one of the most fascinating culinary subjects of all.Quick & Easy Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in Quick & Easy Books
5 Ingredient Fix: Easy, Elegant, and Irresistible Recipesby Claire Robinson
Grand Central Life & Style; Published: 2010-10-06; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $10.94
Price in other shops:
Quick Cuisine (Quick & Easy)by Sunset Books
Sunset Publishing Corporation; Published: 1987-10; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.94
Price in other shops:
Sunset Cooking for Two: Delicious Recipes for All Occasions (Sunset)Sunset Pub Co; Published: 1991-09; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.99
Short Cutsby Steven Saunders
Trans-Atlantic Pubns; Published: 1998-05; Paperback; Book
Best price: $27.50
The One-Dish Vegetarianby Maria Polushkin Robbins
St Martins Pr; Published: 1999-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $49.95
Mexican Made Easy: Everyday Ingredients, Extraordinary Flavorby Marcela Valladolid
Clarkson Potter; Published: 2011-09-27; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $16.69
Price in other shops:
Hungry Girl: Recipes and Survival Strategies for Guilt-Free Eating in the Real Worldby Lisa Lillien
St. Martin's Griffin; Published: 2008-04-29; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.99
Price in other shops:
Fresh Mexico: 100 Simple Recipes for True Mexican Flavorby Marcela Valladolid
Clarkson Potter; Published: 2009-08-25; Paperback; Book
Best price: $10.97
Price in other shops:
365 Easy One-Dish Meals (365 Ways)by Natalie Haughton
Harpercollins; Published: 1990-10; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $2.00
Price in other shops:
Cooking the RealAge Way: Turn Back Your Biological Clock with More Than 80 Delicious and Easy Recipesby Michael F. Roizen, John La Puma
William Morrow Paperbacks; Published: 2006-08-29; Paperback; Book
Best price: $2.40
Price in other shops:
Similar Books and other products
James Beard's American Cookeryby James Beard
Little, Brown and Company; Published: 2010-10-25; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $18.74
Price in other shops:
The Italian Country Table: Home Cooking from Italy's Farmhouse Kitchensby Lynne Rossetto Kasper
Scribner; Published: 1999-10-06; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $11.80
Price in other shops:
The Breakfast Bookby Marion Cunningham
Knopf; Published: 1987-08-12; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $14.12
Price in other shops:
New York Times Cookbookby Craig Claiborne
William Morrow Cookbooks; Published: 1990-04-25; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $16.87
Price in other shops:
Chef Paul Prudhomme's Louisiana Kitchenby Paul Prudhomme
William Morrow Cookbooks; Published: 1984-04-17; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $18.36
Price in other shops:
1896 Boston Cooking-School Cookbookby Fannie Merritt Farmer
Gramercy; Published: 1997-09-16; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $11.95
French Cooking in Ten Minutes: Adapting to the Rhythm of Modern Life (1930)by Edouard de Pomiane
North Point Press; Published: 1994-10-31; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.98
Price in other shops:
Authentic Mexican 20th Anniversary Ed: Regional Cooking from the Heart of Mexicoby Rick Bayless
William Morrow Cookbooks; Published: 2007-04-03; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $17.38
Price in other shops:
Essentials of Classic Italian Cookingby Marcella Hazan
Alfred A. Knopf; Published: 1992-10-27; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $17.25
Price in other shops:
Beard on Food: The Best Recipes and Kitchen Wisdom from the Dean of American Cookingby James Beard
Bloomsbury USA; Published: 2007-09-04; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $15.00
Price in other shops: