[F7D]≫ Libro Gratis The Silver Spoon Phaidon Press 9780714845319 Books

The Silver Spoon Phaidon Press 9780714845319 Books

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The Silver Spoon Phaidon Press 9780714845319 Books

I own over three hundred cookbooks so it's rare for me to get excited over a new one, but The Silver Spoon is different. This is by far the best cookbook released in the English language in the past ten years.

One has to wonder why it took so long for an English-language version to be sold in North America. This cookbook has almost everything a serious home cook could want. Most recipes are simple to prepare and turn out well, and all call for real ingredients, not canned or pre-processed glop. It's surprising how few ingredients go into most recipes and how incredibly flavourful they turn out. I've tried over 30 recipes from the book, and every one turned out perfectly and was delicious.

One unusual feature is the large section on vegetables. Too many cookbooks have huge sections dedicated to meat but a tiny vegetable section containing only a few recipes for carrots, potatoes, and corn. The Silver Spoon contains recipes for dozens of vegetables, including finnochio, mushrooms, artichokes, cabbage (all kinds), parsnips, turnips, chard, and cardoons, in addition to recipes for the more common types. There's also an extensive section on seafood and fish and a large number of "first course" recipes, including appetizers, pizzas, soups, and salads.

Other reviewers have mentioned that many recipes call for unusual amounts of certain ingredients. This is likely because the translators didn't want to test the recipes themselves and were leery of changing the recipes without testing. I personally would have preferred if both metric and imperial measures had been given. In Canada most of our food is sold in metric sizes, so sometimes I feel like I'm translating backwards (11 oz. is 300 grams, 7 oz. is 200 grams, etc.).

There are a few translation clunkers that haven't been recently mentioned: the "Caesar mushrooms" called for in some recipes are likely chanterelles, and the "farro" which makes up some grain dishes is much better known in North America as spelt. I suspect that many of these "errors" in translation are really differences between UK usage and North American usage.

The section on baking is much smaller than in most North American cookbooks. I don't know if Italian families don't eat sweets or if they buy them from a bakery, but the lack of cookie, cake, and tart recipes did seem strange to me. There is also no recipe for Italian bread, quite possibly because most Europeans live near a good bakery and don't have to choose between making bread at home or eating the styrofoamish bread sold at most North American supermarkets.

These are minor quibbles, however. The Silver Spoon contains thousands of uncomplicated recipes for delicious food. It would be a steal at twice the price.


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The Silver Spoon Phaidon Press 9780714845319 Books Reviews

Ok, so maybe the book is not as well-known in Italy as the Joy of Cooking is over here. But that may have more to do with the fact that no respectable Italian I know would admit to owning a book like the JoC, since this is the stuff your mother is supposed to have taught you. And since my mother was not Italian, but English, I think this book is awesome.

And I am GLAD there's no long stories and histories of dishes--I have no time for that. Almost every recipe is boiled down to its essentials, giving simple and quick instructions. If you want a history of Italian regional cooking, this is not for you.

However, if you are someone with little time but with a great appetite for new recipes and combinations of ingredients you had never thought of, this is for you (Fried eggs on eggplant? Pork chops and blueberries and honey? The list goes on. And if they are not 100% Italian, as one reviewer notes, frankly, my darling, I don't give a damn.) These are really original recipes, even though I have had my share of Italian cooking (with a sister married to an Italian and living in Florence for years).

The recipes are listed by ingredient, which is great if you want to eat eggplants, you get (almost) all the recipes in one place. Note that the ordering follows the Italian names of ingredients, so this is a chance to learn the original terms and read Italian menus (otherwise, there is the index of course).

So, yes, no intricate lessons in techniques, shortcuts introduced, complex procedures avoided, and tiny titles close to the binding for the pictures, (look hard, they're there)--but awesome results. We report, you decide!
Echoing so many other rave reviews, I have to say this is one of the most exciting cookbooks I've hefted (and it is hefty!) in a long time. It seems like nearly everything that I've eaten in Italy or seen on an Italian menu or read in another Italian cookbook has a straightforward, canonical recipe in this tome. It was like discovery, uncovering secrets again and again. I was breathless turning pages in my favorites sections, and kept returning to the book for days, unable to pull myself away.

One feature that continued to grab me was the stunning, paradoxical simplicity of these recipes. On the one hand, the dishes themselves have the admirable directness of the most memorable meals in Italy -- made from a handful of ingredients prepared without fuss. One or two flavors against a shallow backdrop. For instance, reading a recipe in The Silver Spoon, I think "Well, of course! Braised savoy cabbage with buckwheat pasta! And of course, it needs so little to go with it -- a little garlic, onion, some chopped sage, salt and pepper. Buono appetit!" Again and again, page after page of recipes with like five or eight ingredients, showcasing the simple, delicate plate so often presented in Italy, whatever the focus.

On the other hand, the recipe text itself is also simple. As other reviewers have noted, this is not a beginner's cookbook. For instance, it may say "Your going to take this fish, and bake it with these herbs and capers, and pour over it this sauce." But it will *not* say "Here's how you prepare a fish filet. Here's how you bake it, and how to tell when it is done. This is the emulsification that you want when you whisk together the sauce ingredients. Etc." You're expected to already have that experience. Another example I've made a good bit of fresh pasta, egg-based or oil, with a machine roller or rolled with a pin by hand. With this background, the directions for all of the wonderful fresh pasta variations in this book made sense to me and were clear. But they were simple, short, and matter of fact -- way less than the pages that other cookbooks devote to preparing the dough, and the silky feel of the rolled dough when it's ready, and resting under towels before cutting, etc.

So I wonder what it'll be like when I try a simple, matter of fact recipe for something I haven't already made a lot, like a gnocchi, from this cookbook. In truth, I'm not too worried, because I already have other cookbooks that say how hard it is to make good gnocchi and explain techniques at length. This cookbook, in contrast, merely says "You know, there are 20 scrumptious traditional variations of gnocchi, including polenta, pumpkin, rice, cheese, and more -- and here's their straightforward recipes." I love that!

Maybe the editors assumed that someone growing up in a home with an Italian kitchen has already seen fresh pasta or gnocchi made, and just needs the recipes for all the variations. Like an American cookbook can say "boil an egg" without further directions. So this cookbook, though encyclopedic in it's recipes, is not -- as other reviewers have said -- encyclopedically instructional in how to cook them, like Joy of Cooking, Beard's American Cookery, or Bittman's How to Cook Everything all are.

And that's just fine.

The Silver Spoon, in this way that it is thrillingly evocative while not being deeply instructional, reminds me most of Alice Waters' cookbooks -- where she will sometimes just list ingredients without amounts, and describe how to cook them together without times; e.g. olive oil and quartered fennel bulb and chili and fennel seed, braised long and slow.

The Silver Spoon does list amounts and times. Maybe it's a reflection of Italian cuisine itself that everything seems so simply stated. It comes across as confident, for the confident chef, who will enjoy this book the most.
I own over three hundred cookbooks so it's rare for me to get excited over a new one, but The Silver Spoon is different. This is by far the best cookbook released in the English language in the past ten years.

One has to wonder why it took so long for an English-language version to be sold in North America. This cookbook has almost everything a serious home cook could want. Most recipes are simple to prepare and turn out well, and all call for real ingredients, not canned or pre-processed glop. It's surprising how few ingredients go into most recipes and how incredibly flavourful they turn out. I've tried over 30 recipes from the book, and every one turned out perfectly and was delicious.

One unusual feature is the large section on vegetables. Too many cookbooks have huge sections dedicated to meat but a tiny vegetable section containing only a few recipes for carrots, potatoes, and corn. The Silver Spoon contains recipes for dozens of vegetables, including finnochio, mushrooms, artichokes, cabbage (all kinds), parsnips, turnips, chard, and cardoons, in addition to recipes for the more common types. There's also an extensive section on seafood and fish and a large number of "first course" recipes, including appetizers, pizzas, soups, and salads.

Other reviewers have mentioned that many recipes call for unusual amounts of certain ingredients. This is likely because the translators didn't want to test the recipes themselves and were leery of changing the recipes without testing. I personally would have preferred if both metric and imperial measures had been given. In Canada most of our food is sold in metric sizes, so sometimes I feel like I'm translating backwards (11 oz. is 300 grams, 7 oz. is 200 grams, etc.).

There are a few translation clunkers that haven't been recently mentioned the "Caesar mushrooms" called for in some recipes are likely chanterelles, and the "farro" which makes up some grain dishes is much better known in North America as spelt. I suspect that many of these "errors" in translation are really differences between UK usage and North American usage.

The section on baking is much smaller than in most North American cookbooks. I don't know if Italian families don't eat sweets or if they buy them from a bakery, but the lack of cookie, cake, and tart recipes did seem strange to me. There is also no recipe for Italian bread, quite possibly because most Europeans live near a good bakery and don't have to choose between making bread at home or eating the styrofoamish bread sold at most North American supermarkets.

These are minor quibbles, however. The Silver Spoon contains thousands of uncomplicated recipes for delicious food. It would be a steal at twice the price.