PrintCookbok help-Cooking vs. The Cook's Book
I want to get either Cooking by James Peterson, or The Cook's Book. I've read great reviews of both, and they seem kind of similar, but I can't decide! Any suggestions as to which book would be a better choice?
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4 Comments:
Not familiar yet with The Cook's Book, but in my experience, you can never go wrong with any book by James Peterson. He's got real street cred.
frederika at 10:32PM on 02/13/08
I got The Cook's Book last year for christmas, I haven't made anything from it yet. It didn't really inspire me, I guess it seemed a little impersonal. I like a bit of a story with my recipe. I did read it through and it does offer some interesting techniques.
jhendricks215 at 2:21PM on 02/14/08
James Peterson is a real genius but he suffers from Rose Levy Beranbaum Syndrome - he's verbose. This is great for beginner cooks and eventually after preparing a recipe a few times, experienced cooks will tend to "skim" just for reminders.
James Peterson was the Dean of Students at the school I attended, Peter Kump's NY Cooking School, now called ICE. Street Cred isn't the word! This guy is a machine in the kitchen. Great text from which to learn.
chiff0nade at 4:13PM on 02/14/08
Depends on why you want either of them. Peterson's is so generally comprehensive: if you're looking for the fundamentals/classics, I'd definitely go with his.
If you have a good grasp of the basics, The Cook's Book might be more interesting because it takes into account the particular quirks of the different chefs featured. But in my opinion, it tries to do too much, and someone deeply interested in particular chefs or styles would be better off with their respective books. Ie., if you're not into baking or desserts, you might not want to face up to Pierre Herme's level of technical precision. And if you really love potatoes, or you really love Ferran Adria, you'd be better off with a good collection of classic potato dishes or an Adria book. Potato foam is not enough of either, know what I mean?
renzata at 11:49PM on 02/14/08