December 26, 2007

The Bookshelf: Eating, A to Z

Food%20snob%20dictionary.jpg Elements%20of%20cooking.jpg Michael Ruhlman is something of a foodie phenom. A journalist who fell into cooking after writing about education and boatbuilding, he has collaborated on a series of celebrity-chef cookbooks (with Eric Ripert and Thomas Keller), contributes regularly to the New York Times and is often on TV as a panelist or judge for reality-cooking shows. He also has an extensive website, ruhlman.com, that was just named the best industry-related food blog (and best chef blog) on the internetz.

Ruhlman's latest publication is a book called The Elements of Cooking, an obvious echo of Strunk & White's The Elements of Style. After a few uninspired essays (Stock, Salt, Eggs), the book is a quasi-encyclopedia of cooking terms, from Acid to Zester. Each entry is what you'd expect if you asked a humorless, pedantic friend to explain something: "what does al dente mean?" "what's kimchi? and so on. Three categories of soup (clear, cream, puree). Cook, sous-chef and line cook get separate entries. But Half-and-Half? Spatula?

David Kamp, meanwhile, is out with the Food Snob's Dictionary, a hilarious "essential lexicon of gastronomical knowledge." You may remember Vanity Fair writer Kamp as the author of The United States of Arugula, a deliciously gossipy history of the foodie movement that also happened to name almost everyone who had ever slept with James Beard, Craig Claiborne and Alice Waters. Wide circles, though not overlapping.

Many of the two books' entries do overlap, however. But when Ruhlman is finished telling you what a brunoise is (a sauté of diced vegetables), Kamp adds "Maniacal chefs are fond of dismissing unworthy brunoises as 'Sheet!' or 'Merde!' and then demanding that the cowed apprentice chopper start over."

Like the class clown, Kamp doesn't get the teacher's respect; that goes to the super-serious Ruhlman. But they're like the Spratts: between the two of them, they lick the platter clean.

Posted by Ronald Holden at December 26, 2007 5:30 PM | TrackBack

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Comments

BTW, New York Times has article about wealth of food books published this year, including these two!

Posted by: Ronald at December 28, 2007 1:47 PM

Was wondering myself ...

Posted by: Ronald at December 28, 2007 1:32 PM

Perhaps Liaa had too many pitchers of beer? What is she talking about??

Posted by: Just a friend at December 28, 2007 1:31 PM

Perhaps Liaa had too many pitchers of beer? What is she talking about??

Posted by: Just a friend at December 28, 2007 1:30 PM

Helllloooooooooo my good fellow......... lest we meekishly, but knowingly wonderfully, yet snobishly (what the hell), lick this commentary clean my good man.....like a good Chianti with Favre' beans.......lick, lick, lick...

It's like this... the new "Good-Ole'-Day's-Gone-Bye-Word-Up-Recipe-For-New-Women-And-Wife's-That-Need-To-Know-Cookbook" is great and very usefull..... But the...... oh so new....somewhat caloric counting heavy weight of a new fab recipe cookbook....... - the oh .....so....but .........."heavyweight (4 lbs.)most revered and coveted recipe book of all time"......... (countdown to caloric hell....oh yes, "Fried Chicken and Country Gravy" recipe......)the all new......

"Betty Crocker Recipe Book"! It's here.....do I hear a resounding.......Oh ya, oh ya, oooh ya baby baby........yesssssssssssss!!!!

Does frick'n 4 lbs in every state, recipe, genre' "Debbie does Dallas" cook book set's us all straight with the good ole' recipe's of days' gone past sound good? Oh ya, hell yes dahlink.......got's to have it!!!!

Now maybe, it does not deliceously gossipipi like the others, it does give us entree' of the delectible tibbits of wonderul ohh so yummy.....se....capadesssss....!!! We need to keep in perspective it is not gatronomy alone that feeds us........Ron, without your book to set us all straight in the Gawdforsake'n PNW area we so desperatetely seek some vain egotistical self-satisfying enigmatic dumbass guide to nothing........- please let's just like amoung others that so ruthfulllessley self-eface and hope for the best, that these whimsical wonderous books serve some absorbant purpose to educate the masses without some sort of childhood trauma. Gawd bless them all and.... Betttay Crocker!

Posted by: Lisa Hilderbrand at December 26, 2007 9:52 PM
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