The Elements of Cooking: Translating the Chef's Craft for Every Kitchen

I originally bought this book for my daughter whose enrolled in culinary school and loving it. I started to read it and found it a very fascinating book and enjoyed the writing style of the author. It's a must-have if you're a foodie! It defines so many things clearly and simply so anyone could understand and benefit from. It's helped me define what my kitchen should be like and how to function in it. The other book which I found invaluable is Alton Brown's Kitchen Gear book. I stripped my kitchen of a lot of junk thanks to him.

This book is a must-have for anyone who knows how to open a fridge or turn on a stove. You don't have to be an expert cook or "foodie" (I hate that word) to appreciate this book and the advice and guidance it offers. In fact, this might be the very book that helps someone get over the hurdle of nuking a Lean Cuising every night and encourage them to make a salad or cook a perfectly edible omelet after a long day at work. The writing and the tone of this book is very straightforward and really approachable -- it's almost like having a friend in the kitchen with you to help guide the way.

`The Elements of Cooking' by one half of the modern culinary Johnson and Boswell team, Michael Ruhlman (introduced by the other half of the team, Anthony Bourdain) is a brilliant conception, with some superb ideas communicated, but which falls short of true excellence by a fair measure!For starters, the book claims to be patterned after a true classic, Strunk and White's little manual of writing, `The Elements of Style' (Elements). Many books have taken the same tack, especially in the field of computer programming technique. The big difference is that programming is very much like writing, and even more amenable to simple rules, while cooking is far more similar to a plastic art, where your ingredients vary from day to day, from source to source, and from season to season. The second slip down the slippery slope of concept is that the book does not consistently follow Strunk and White's pattern. Where `Elements ' is composed entirely of brief lessons on good usage and writing technique, Ruhlman starts out in the manner of `Elements', but a third of the way through converts to the style of Fowler's equally famous writing manual `Modern English Usage'. That is, the book switches from advice by technique to a glossary of culinary terms. And, it is this section which is called the `Elements'. The first fifty pages, which look most like `Elements', are labeled `Notes on Cooking from Stock to Finesse'. Now if this book had followed the `Notes' pattern or the `Usage' style throughout, I would have been far happier. As it is, both sections have a feeling of incompleteness about them.There are at least two other superficial weaknesses of this book which are truly amazing, given the stature of the author and the publisher (Scribners). It is truly amazing to discover that the book has neither a Table of Contents nor an Index! Now if the book were dedicated exclusively the glossary format, these absences would have made some sense. You find neither in a dictionary or encyclopedia or any other reference composed of small entries in alphabetical order. But then, this book is not entirely composed of this glossary.The `Notes of Cooking' is composed of sections on a few seminal subjects, and the material in these articles is truly remarkable. They are things every serious cook should read. The list of section titles is:1. Stock2. Sauce3. Salt4. The Egg5. Heat6. Tools7. Sources and Acknowledgements (15 Good Books about Food and Cooking)8. FinesseThe single genuine recipe in the whole book is for basic brown veal stock on page 10. Since Ruhlman's objective in this chapter is to correct our ignorance about this philosopher's stone of cooking, this is reasonable, but is a symptom of the fact that Ruhlman is not living up to his subtitle, `Translating the Chef's Craft for Every Kitchen'. After such a brilliant start with his discussion of stocks (which, by the way, every novice cook MUST read), followed by the very logical `Sauce' and `Salt' topics, Ruhlman starts to meander. With this title, I would have expected coverage of techniques and recipes for biscuits, crepes, pastry dough, bread, braising, vinaigrettes, salads, grilling, steaming, meringues, omelets. Some of these topics are addressed in passing, but good luck finding them on the fly if it is not in the glossary. As it turns out, there is a superb new book, Alice Waters' `The Art of Simple Food' which does everything Ruhlman should have done. And, if you prefer another suggestion, try Julia Child's last book, `Julia's Kitchen Wisdom', which covers everything I mentioned and more.There is one advantage to Ruhlman's missing index and table of contents. This book, at least the first fifty pages of `Notes', really needs to be read from front to back. One can do this easily within two to three hours, and you will be richer for the effort (assuming you are really interested in cooking). The sections on stock and `finesse' alone are worth the cost of the book to avid foodies. The notion of finesse is a far, far better expression of what Emeril Lagasse calls `a food of love thing'. Mario Batali describes it as an accumulation of small measures which individually do little, but when many are combined into a whole cooking ethos, your results will be markedly better than the average cook, even though you both used the same recipes and virtually identical ingredients. The notion of finesse is far easier to translate into practice than `love'.It is also very easy to read Ruhlman's first fifty pages because of his engaging writing style. He presents arcane facts in words which make far more sense than if you read the same thing in Harold McGee's `On Food and Cooking' (One of Ruhlman's fifteen books). In fact, Ruhlman's style is so loose, compared to some of the great culinary writing stylists such as Elizabeth David and M. F. K. Fisher that you start to suspect he is simply phoning it all in to Scribners copy editors. But it is still good stuff. That is, until you get to the glossary. The breezy style continues, and starts feeling a bit more out of place. Then, I start to see small bits of awkwardness in the wording and subtle errors in factual material. The first is exemplified by the clumsy definition of `mandoline', which suggests that a Japanese mandolin is not a real mandolin. The second is in the definition of marrow, which states that it is a fatty connective tissue. It is not that at all. It is the tissue inside the large bones in which red blood cells are produced.This is one of those times I really wish I could assign fractional stars. I would give this book four and three-fourths of a star. Or, I would give it five stars for foodies and professionals and three stars for non-foodies.

This book is an essential tool in my kitchen now. I recommend it to anyone who wants to take their home-cooking to a higher level. The glossery does not just contain definitions, but also advise and opinions about several of the terms. The essays do a fabulous job of explaining why each subject is important to the quality of your cooking. They go a long way in helping a novice to intermediate cook develop some fundamental skills that have been proven to produce good results.

This book is a great idea, and in many respects lives up to what it aims to achieve. It teaches an understanding of cooking rather than a parrot-recipe-imitate approach to food, but unfortunately, one thing you quickly learn is that other books are better at the 'how and why' approach to cooking such as On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen.This book presents an attitude that I endorse, but doesn't provide the knowledge or the understanding to change cooking practices. There is not much that I am able to do better having read the book. Perhaps I may change from cooking stock in a pressure cooker, but while the book details the preparation of veal stock it doesn't really detail the disadvantages of other methods. Unlike Strunk and White's The Elements of Style , this book does not have a left-hand column(common mistake) and right-hand column(correct way). Neither does it have a section on the "principles of composition", which would be very useful. The second and main part of this book is a useful glossary of cooking terms, but not a "how and why" on common cooking scenarios.This is no Strunk and White, and while it is opinionated the author relies heavily on the knowledge and authority of others to communicate his ideas. There is much of "so and so does this" instead of a "because of this, do this to get that", which I would have preferred. There is name dropping and an assumption that some jargon terms are understood.The book guides the reader in the right direction, but leaves him with little substance.While I give it three stars now, this book may stay with me for some time as a reference, and I am glad that I now know what books to buy next.

Exactly what every cook needs. Great delivery service too.

Still reading this, but just what I like, informative and giving a well rounded view too. A good choice for anyone who likes to know not only how but why....

the book is exactly what i was looking for. an indepth explanation of what cooking is. although i have not even finished the first chapter, i have already learned important base knowledge about cooking. looking forward to the rest of it...

A book that works on two levels. First it treats major topics like sauces, stocks, salt, heat, etc. The it is a mini-encyclopedia, with many cooking terms explained with succinct discussions. I have given this as a gift many times to foodie friends. They love it!The only dangers are that you will want to read Ruhlman's other books and you will start improvising in the kitchen because you understand the basics!

Best book related to cooking I have read as a reference book. Not a receipe book but more than a manual of cooking terms, methods, tips, tricks etc. I have learnt a lot.