Bruce Cost
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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 7
Average rating: 5.0 of 5
Buy This Book. Superb Presentation of East Asian Foods! 5 out of 5 stars.
43 of 43 people found this review helpful.
`Asian Ingredients' by Bruce Cost is one of those books like Patience Gray's `Honey from a Weed' and Claudia Roden's `New Book of Middle Eastern Food' which gets cited as THE authority on its subject by culinary heavyweights such as Ruth Reichl and Alice Waters. So, in my quest for the perfect culinary library, I really need to read and review this book. I am very happy to say that the reputation of this book is not overdone. It is one of the finest books on culinary ingredients I have seen on either Oriental or Occidental cuisines. The author states from the outset that his objective was not to give us an encyclopedic work. What we get is much closer to some of the finer books on Mediterranean cuisine such as Nancy Harmon Jenkins `The Essential Mediterranean'. In many ways, Cost's book is far more practical, albeit less analytical than Jenkins' work.
Cost deals with the fairly homogeneous food world of Japan, Korea, China, Viet Nam, and Thailand. He mentions India as an influence on Thai cuisine, but does not deal directly with Indian cuisine, as it is substantially different from the cuisine of China and the rest of the Far East. The book also does not deal with the cuisine of the Philippines or Indonesia, as the cuisines of these two nations are heavily influenced by European colonization beginning in the 16th century.
One of the best things about Cost's book is that it is organized in such a way to make it a pleasure to read for background information. While I have never sat down to read the Larousse Gastronomique for pleasure, I read Cost's book from cover to cover with great pleasure, skipping a very few subjects on which I was very familiar. Costs book is divided into the following seven (7) major chapters:
Fresh Ingredients including Herbs and Seasonings, Vegetables and Fungi, Meat, Poultry and Eggs, Fish
Preserved and Processed Ingredients including Dried Ingredients, Cured Ingredients, and Soy and Coconut
Condiments and Sauces including Soy based condiments, Fish based sauces, Chili based sauces, Vinegar and spirits, and Flavored oils
Spices, Sugars, Nuts, and Seeds, including Spices, Sugar, Nuts and Seeds
Rice
Noodles and Wrappers
Flours and Thickeners
Cooking Fats and Oils
One of the most dramatic lessons to be learned from this book is the fact that like the Mediterranean respect for dried and preserved ingredients such as salted cod, dried pasta, and dry beans, Asian dried ingredients such as seaweed, vegetables, fish, and mushrooms are highly regarded ingredients in their own right. They are not `second best'. By drying and concentrating their flavors, they bring something to the party that is simply beyond their fresh precursors.
Another fairly dramatic discovery is the fact that while so many of the spices prized by Europe and so greatly desired by Renaissance Europe were grown just next door to China and Japan, these spices such as black pepper, nutmeg, cloves, and cinnamon (cassias) really did not and still do not play a big part in East Asian cuisine, except for Thailand, which is influenced by the curries and other spices of India. Northern China and Japan almost totally reject the use of the `cookie spices' except for ginger, which is used heavily throughout the region covered by the book.
It is interesting to see both the harmony and the dissonance created when one lays Mediterranean and Far Eastern cuisine side by side. Some of the biggest parallels are the importance of garlic, pork, mushrooms, cilantro, and New World (capsicum) chilis. Some differences are in the relative importance of drying versus salt curing. As Nancy Harmon Jenkins points out, salt is much more important in the Mediterranean cuisines simply because the Mediterranean is saltier than the oceans, so it is a lot easier to acquire than on the Pacific Rim. There are some salt cured pork products, with hams very similar to Smithfield hams, but nowhere near as much of the Charcuterie / salume culture of Western Europe. The greatest differences between the two areas lies in the use of milk. There is simply no milk culture in East Asia from cows, goats, sheep, or buffalo. The Chinese and Japanese feel the same towards Europe's more aromatic cheeses as westerners may feel about fermented fish sauce, birds nests (dried bird saliva), and seaweed. Where the European uses animals' milk, the Asian uses milk refined from soy or coconut.
An important part of this book, more important than similar samples in most other books of this type, is the recipes, especially for things such as fish and chicken stocks, which are far simpler than comparable French stocks. They are not just simpler; there is a whole rationale in the Chinese cuisine against including vegetables in chicken stock recipes.
Two of the most useful aspects of this book are the recommendations on how to best use Asian markets and which commercial preparations are of a high quality. I had some reservations regarding a local Chinese run farmer's market with a fish counter until I read Cost's description of Asians' regard for freshness in fish. The `Iron Chef' episodes where virtually all seafood ingredients are presented live is not for the sake of show business. These people are SERIOUS about their fresh fish! Note that while this book was originally written and published in 1988, the new paperback edition was revised in 2000, so the numerous comments about which prepared brand name ingredients are the best should be fairly current.
This book is so good you will be remiss if you buy any other book on East Asian ingredients without first reading this new edition. Other books may offer better coverage of selected aspects of this subject, but this book is certainly the gold standard against which other books should be measured!
Very highly recommended, especially if you like to read about food as well as eat it.
Editorial Review:
First published in 1988, Bruce Cost's Asian Ingredients was immediately hailed as one of the most comprehensive and fascinating books on Asian foodstuffs ever written. Now fully revised and updated, Asian Ingredients offers a wealth of information on identifying and using the often unfamiliar ingredients in traditional bottled condiments. This book's clear black-and-white photographs make it easy to identify ingredients in your local supermarkets or Asian grocery, while Cost's carefully researched notes explain how to select, store, and cook with these wonderful foods. Cost also includes more than 130 simple recipes for sumptuous Asian specialties. Cooks can create the dramatic flavors of China, Japan, and southeast Asia in their own kitchens with this indispensable resource.
