Slight luddism aside, this is an awesome hands-on book about food traditions

Everything you wanted to know about cooking but were afraid to ask! | Forgotten Skills of Cooking: The Time-Honored Ways are the Best - Over 700 Recipes Show You Why | Darina Allen

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	• Forgotten Skills of Cooking: The Time-Honored Ways are the Best - Over 700 Recipes Show You Why Darina Allen Kyle Books, 2010 - 600 pages average customer review:based on 8 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Wonderful!!

What can I say about this book only I think it is fantastic. Having grown up in Ireland it brings back great memories of me and my mom collecting blackberries and making wonderful pies. It is by far my favorite book on my shelf right now, and I have been married 20 years. Its is interesting and full of beautiful pictures and packed full of knowledge. Well thought out and written by Mrs. Allen. This would be a wonderful gift for anyone.

Slight luddism aside, this is an awesome hands-on book about food traditions

Knowledge of the ways of past kitchens is not (as this book would have you believe) necessarily the *best* way, but it's still very important to preserve, since old techniques are responsible for many classic flavors that would be lost with total modernization. Welcome to the Forgotten Skills of Cooking, one of the best Irish cuisine imports I've seen in years... and yet...

You know you've found something a little more than a cookbook when you find recipes you might never be able to use that you still learn a lot from. This book frankly has a very strong rural bias; much of it won't be of much use to a city dweller, even someone with a garden in the back of their triple-decker; such is life. Be that as it may, I remember a few years ago a group of chefs in France trying to get French food declared an endangered cultural treasure (or whatever it is UNESCO's category is called), and I pointed out the absurdity in a blog entry by taking a picture of every French cookbook I had at the time; this book takes the same attitude I had, and commits a lot of this material to paper, in one fairly large book that brings together techniques and ingredients that are traditionally very scattered. Of course, it isn't just the recipes -- there is information on numerous varieties of preservation, including plans for hot and cold smokers. The very first chapter is about foraging for wild greens. There's plenty of data on game, fish, herbs, and cuts of meat, and everything from bread to milk.

On the other hand, there's one majorly bothersome aspect -- in common with many other books that seem to be coming from Ireland and the UK, there's a bit of a luddite streak to the book -- among other things, she prefers raw milk (although she isn't dogmatic about it, raw milk is too dangerous to trust even from the cleanest of dairy farms) and speaks approvingly of Andrew Whitley's knee-jerk, painfully ignorant antimodernist approach to breadmaking. Because of that mentality, I can't give this book the five stars it otherwise deserves; preserving this knowledge is very important, but excessive crunchiness is a slap in the face to people who understand the value of scientific cooking and combining the traditional and modern.

Upshot is, this is a great book, highly to be recommended. I just wish that the book didn't fall so much into the "old is better" and "all-natural" traps; preserving the past and living in it are very, very different activities. You still won't be disappointed.

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Everything you wanted to know about cooking but were afraid to ask!

This is a great book... great (as in it practically weighs a ton) and great ... (as in it has loads of interesting and entertaining information). My expert son-in-law chef discovered lots about preparing wild game (and he's a former forest ranger). I loved learning basic Irish cooking since my family hails from Connemara. Finally, because of "Forgotten Skills of Cooking," I can devour a perfect Spotted Dog (with no animal cruelty involved).

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A Wealth of Information

I've had a ball reading this book. I love the history. I love the simple cooking skills taught in it. I love the recipes. I love reading about the Irish culture. There are exotic ingredients from the shores of the sea that I would never think of as cooking ingredients. But there they are, as exotic as anything in a Japanese restaurant. There are techniques for using over the hill ingredients. There are recipes for all sorts of leftover things you might throw away. I've made all the quick breads now - they are simple and excellent. I've made a few of the desserts, simple and excellent. Seafood recipes teach you cooking techniques and how to treat fresh ingredients. You can make your butter from scratch! If you are interested in the world and traditions of cooking, not just the recipes, this is a valuable addition to your culinary library.

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Awesome!

My husband loves to cook for us and anyone who visits. When I saw this book on Amazon I knew it was perfect for him for father's day. Well, when I tell you he LOVED it - I am not exaggerating. He's reading it all the time and planning something special for dinner! Can't wait!

In this timely new book, Darina reconnects you with the cooking skills that missed a generation or two. The book is divided into chapters such as "Dairy," "Poultry and Eggs," "Bread," and "Preserving," and forgotten processes such as smoking mackerel, curing bacon, and making yogurt and butter are explained in the simplest terms. The delicious recipes show you how to use your homemade bounty to its best, and include ideas for using forgotten cuts of meat, baking bread and cakes, and even eating food from the wild. The "Vegetables and Herbs" chapter is stuffed with growing tips to satisfy even those with the smallest garden plot or window box, and there are plenty of suggestions for using gluts of vegetables. You'll even discover how to keep a few chickens in your backyard. With over 700 recipes, this is the definitive modern guide to traditional cooking skills.

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