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Loading... Sauces: Classical and Contemporary Sauce Makingby James Peterson
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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. This seems like a good reference book for sauces. Can anyone suggest others that they think are just as good if not better?  riptiki | Jul 11, 2009 |  How and why of any sauce you might need. (  ) cookebooks | Jul 31, 2008 | This is a classic! Very thorough. All you ever needed to know about the basic sauces. (  ) deeyork | Mar 3, 2008 | This book is the deepest and most comprehensive book on classical sauce making, history and trivia that you can find in a single volume. As Professorx's review says, it is definitely geared toward the professional chef (which is why I love it: it's so hard to find cookbooks for professionals that aren't actually culinary school textboks). Peterson always seems to be on his game no matter the culinary topic, and SAUCES is no exception. With the history and origins of so many sauces explained, this book is as much a literary adventure as it is an instructional manual. As a bonus for the more experimental cooks out there, Peterson includes several recipes and techniques for recreating truly medieval and ancient sauces, from pigeon dressings to gold-plated chickens to Roman garum. As I said though, it is a book on classical sauce-making; though it contains several dozen pages on Asian and Indian sauces, these final chapters lack the depth and polish of the rest of the book (and make no mention at all of Middle Eastern or African sauces). It's probably a matter of space constraints more than anything; these regions have their own incredibly diverse techniques and histories. Perhaps someday Peterson can devote a volume to them exclusively (unless I beat him to it :) Despite those omissions, SAUCES remains a solid 5 out of 5 stars and one of the most useful books in my kitchen. Highly recommended. ( )2  maravedi | Dec 13, 2007 | An outstanding book - 1) systemises the art (mystery?) of sauce-making, 2) is accessible to both the professional and non-professional reader, 3) Notable section on making stocks which has wider application beyond the matter in hand. ( ) jontseng | Jan 5, 2007 |  no reviews | add a review
Amazon.com (ISBN 0471292753, Hardcover)Back in 1991, when the first edition of Sauces was published, it's as though James Peterson said, "Okay, this is what we know so far. Where do you want to go from here?" The "what we know so far" part started with the Greeks and Romans, moved through the Middle Ages, into the Renaissance, through the 17th and 18th centuries, and right on into time as we know it, time that can be tasted in the sauce.The "where do you want to go" part continues to evolve, as it always will, but remains just as evident in the way we sauce our creations, both elegant and fundamental. In the second edition of Sauces, released seven years after the first, the "we" has expanded beyond Frenchmen and their disciples, and now includes the broader range of flavors experienced by Italians as pasta sauces, as well as New World cooks and their counterparts in the Middle East and throughout greater Asia. The solid base from which all this grows, however, remains the lessons learned in the French kitchen--and a better kitchen for such lessons has never been developed. To cook is one thing, to sauce another. The right sauce lifts the right dish to a wholly different plateau of dining than would be the case if the cook didn't bother. This can be a humble pasta sauce created as a perfect balance of ingredients on hand, or a carefully considered sauce the ingredients of which have been developed at the stove over days, not mere hours. In the sauce can be seen the reflection of the cook. There is no room to hide. In the well-crafted sauce can be found the ultimate expression of simplicity, which leaves even less room to hide. It is James Peterson's great talent that he can draw the home cook and professional cook into his dialogue on sauces, and teach them both how to stay afloat in such shallow waters. Peterson gives the reader--in close to 600 pages, mind you--the continuum on which sauces have been based in culinary history. He gives the reader the kitchen science that allows sauces to work. He gives the reader the techniques necessary to follow along where many a cook has already whisked up a splendid creation. But most of all, he gives the reader permission to go ahead and be creative, to cut loose with knowledge and technique in hand and discover for oneself the way an inkling of a flavor idea can find its way to a dish and make the combined ingredients lift off the plate. Or not. Finding out what doesn't work can be just as important. This is a book that can be taken to bed and savored, page by page, sauce by sauce. It is a book that should be on the shelf in any kitchen, professional or homebody alike. It is not a book to ever gather dust and need dusting. --Schuyler Ingle (retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:58:03 -0400) The first test round has been closed. Visit the Open Shelves Classification group for details. |
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