Comment by tptacek | Hacker News Reader

Comment by tptacek | Hacker News Reader

I've read the book and watched the series. Both are fine.

The series is in a weird place in between Mind of a Chef (which, in most of its seasons, is a significantly better show) and a more conventional FoodTV cooking show. I think they're trying to do too much in each episode, and also that the travel-show part of each episode works better than the cooking demos do.

The book is better than the show. I have friends that swear by it. I like it fine! It sort of joins a pantheon of "if you're only going to own one cooking book make it this one" books, which would include Bittman's "How To Cook Anything", Ruhlman's "Twenty", the Cooks Illustrated Cookbook, and, I don't know, maybe "Joy of Cooking"?

Of those books, I think Ruhlman's "Twenty" is by far the best. It's similar to "Salt, Fat" in the sense that it breaks cooking down by technique and concept, instead of courses or dishes. But I think it has a more coherent structure, covers more ground, and, while wasting less time on narrative, still manages to establish a conversational tone.

In New Zealand that "one cooking book" is the Edmonds Cookery Book: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmonds_Cookery_Book

Tells you all the essentials of how to cook meat and veges and make basic sauces and all that, plus has a whole lot of relatively simple recipes that use common ingredients.

We recently had a 2nd hand copy shipped to NYC to bring a little bit of home back to the kitchen.

It’s almost like the Michelin: intended to sell more of a product (tires/flour), but ended up iconic in its own right.

What's scary is comparing the old versions of the Edmonds Cook Book with the more recent versions and seeing how much more sugar we're putting in a lot of the stuff we're making.

Would be fun make the same recipes from different editions and compare. I've noticed some minor variations between my parent's copy and mine but neither are really old.

I remember my ANZAC biscuits recipe in particular has less butter and more sugar, like you say, and is clearly inferior. A bit sad. However we also have Edmonds: Best of Baking, which is newer than my Edmonds Cookbook, and prescribes more like the old recipe with more butter.

I remember looking up eggnog recipes and realizing that the 1950s used twice as much whiskey as the modern versions

That was some good eggnog

Looking at recipes on the Internet it seems eggnog barely contains any whiskey by volume. By comparison German Eierlikör consists mostly of korn (a 32% ABV clear liquor similar to vodka) or white rum.

I'm not sure what 1950s eggnog looked like but I'm guessing it was more like the German style Eierlikör (i.e. made mostly with liquor and eggs) than the modern eggnog (i.e. mostly milk and cream).

Was the whiskey of the 1950s lower proof?

Definitely not. In fact, I think more of it was probably bonded (100 proof).

Some of the more basic “the Good Housekeeping Cookbook” earlier editions (50s, 60s) are nice and basic; aren’t flashy, but you get the basics. Rabbit Stew, Gumbo, and 1000 others.

Do all the "cooking bibles" assume a specific cuisine?

Depends on the book. For example, Joy of Cooking is pretty standard American and Italian/French-by-way-of-America fare (unsurprisingly, since it was first published in the US in 1931), while How To Cook Everything has a much wider remit.

Yes, in my expericen they all kind of do.

This doesn't mean that you won't find recipes from a foreigen cuisine in them. Most of them are however adapted to the cuisine the book is from.

Sometimes it's a recipe that is basically unknown in it's country of supposed origin (Spaghetti with meatballs).

But often they are only adapted to the different preference in taste, or the different things you will get at the grocery store.

I think the series is pretty enjoyable if you think of it as a celebration of food and how, across the world, the same few fundamental elements come together to do so much magic. It's not really a show about teaching cooking or even delving into the details of specific dishes.

Might not be a "classic", but in my opinion, The Food Lab is one of those 'if you only own one' book. Though it might seem like it is for home cooks who aren't just beginning.

I remember you talking about serious eats somewhere so I'm interested why you didn't include this.

I’d definitely include the food lab in such a list but I think it likely resonates with the tech/science crowd a bit more than say the general public. Kenji is really thorough and at times scientific in his explanations. I could see it being off putting to someone who just wants to know what works or doesn’t.

In a similar case of you recalling him mentioning the food lab, I believe it was his mentioning of the podcast “Cooking Issues” that made me a subscriber.

The problem with “The Food Lab” is that by the time you get to it there is virtually no chance it’s your first. Compare to something like “The Joy of Cooking” or “How to Cook Everything”.

The latter are considered normal & good gifts for kids living on their own for the first time. With the former, it might be one I’d keep if I were only allowed 1 with my experience now, but it’s certainly not the one I’d go with if I knew I could only ever be exposed to 1.

Although not a cookbook, McGee's On Food And Cooking certainly improved my ability to cook.

Haven't read the book, but there was definitely something off about the Netflix series. It was good and worth watching. While Samin is a wonderful, jolly personality and a large brained chef, she is not interesting enough to carry the series.

I think the first half of "Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat" is a good companion for the "how to cook everything" books. If you have other resources you like for recipes and techniques, you can read it just for how it breaks down the flavor of dishes, the title concept, and skim the rest.

The show is very different from the book. It's a great pleasure to watch, even though I don't feel like I learn anything that improves my cooking. I agree that the cooking demos don't add much. It feels like she isn't as comfortable looking at the camera as she is conversing in front of it, and she's already said everything so well in the book, you might as well skip to the next episode.

In India that single cookbook would be 'Modern Cookery' by Thankam E Philip.

I clicked around in the Amazon previews and Modern Cookery reads a lot like "New Pro Chef", the Culinary Institute textbook.

Indian here, who loves to cook.

I do not know the book the GP mentions about, but the best cookbooks happen to be in languages of the region of India, where the food is consumed. If you can find the English translations of these, that is your best bet. The other option is to buy regionally produced (often no photos, poor print) english books. You need to roll with the ingredients being called as-is, and need to repurpose it.

One such popular book, which has been in print for 65 years, is called "Samaithu Paar" (Loosely "Try to cook"). The original book was in Tamil, but Penguin has published an extract of sorts in English - https://penguin.co.in/book/non-fiction/the-best-of-samaithu-...

On the second school of "poorly produced, but in English" variety, at least for South Indian cooking, I suggest the books of Mallika Badrinath. https://www.amazon.in/Books-MALLIKA-BADRINATH/s?ie=UTF8&page...

Having read a few "award winning" Indian cookbooks, they are largely food-porn variety of books, and I find them bulky and of little use.

Thangam Phillip is not like the typical food-porn Indian cookbook, it is a two volume encyclopediatic book which she wrote in the early years of independent India, originally to assist the nascent hospitality Industry.

Thank you. Did not know about her.

Sorry to go off topic, but you should know that I read this in Patrick Batemans voice. I'd probably consider that a compliment.

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