Asian Ingredients: A Guide to the Foodstuffs of China, Japan, Korea, Thailand and Vietnam

Un livre qui doit présenter les ingrédients asiatiques et qui n’a pas de photos: totalement nul!Il est parti directement à la poubelle...A book that is supposed to present the ingredients of Asian cooking without a single picture? Really?It went to the bin immediately....

Even when published Shark Fin Soup was something not to be celebrated - and with a blurb from Alice Waters, who has been talking about sustainable production of food and awareness of sourcing it was simply shocking to find this recipe - I am very sorry i purchased this book - simply horrifying

I already own the original 1988 hardback edition, which is a superb and immensely useful book: more than five stars! Here on Amazon it should be easy and cheap for you to  obtain that original edition , and I urge you to do so, for it is far better than this edition, despite the publisher's false claim that this one is "Fully revised and updated".As an owner of the original, I feel tricked and cheated by the publisher. When I ordered this purportedly "new" edition I somehow overlooked the completely accurate Amazon customer review entitled: "Fully revised and expanded"...NOTIndeed, not only have I yet to find anything new in this reprint, but there are far fewer photographs than there were in the original. For example, ALL of the photos of the labels on the bottles and jars of the many recommended sauces and condiments are GONE! When scanning the shelves of a large Chinese supermarket the photos in the original edition were extremely helpful in identifying the right brand, and their absence from the reprint is inexplicable and inexcusable.Even the photos that are included are often not the same as in the original edition...and are much WORSE! Have you ever seen ingenious photos of familiar objects taken from vantage points contrived to disguise what it is that has been photographed? Well, some of these new photos are like that (quite unlike the clear and helpful photos in the original edition). To be specific, I defy all but the most experienced Asian chefs to even identify the photos on pages 23, 41, and 42, as being lemon grass, choi sum, and gai lan, respectively. Whereas the photos in the original edition showed the bases of these plants (crucial for identification) these new photos show only the very tips!I have immense respect for Mr. Cost, and living in San Francisco I was lucky enough to go to his iconic Monsoon restaurant many times before he moved on to the much bigger Big Bowl project in the mid-west (which I have also been to and which is also very good). I can only imagine he was too busy to pay attention to the details of this reprint, for I cannot imagine that someone of his intellectual and culinary caliber would be happy with the end result.Having exhausted my supply of bile, let me end by saying that if you do not already own the original edition and cannot find a second hand copy of the same, then you should immediately click on the Buy Now button for this reprint. Flawed as it is, there is still no other book like it in the English language: you owe it to yourself to have it.P.S. Mr. Cost's earlier book devoted to ginger is equally invaluable, containing many absolutely fantastic recipes. This book has yet to be reprinted, but second-hand copies are readily available here on Amazon:  Ginger East To West: The Classic Collection Of Recipes, Techniques, And Lore, Revised And Expanded . obtain that original editionGinger East To West: The Classic Collection Of Recipes, Techniques, And Lore, Revised And Expanded

I've been going to Asian markets for years, especially for live fish, and had made many other purchases as well. These were largely hit-or-miss guesses.Some of he smaller markets don't identify what the fish and other meats are at all. After shopping at one of those, I decided I needed a way to know what I was looking at. There was less than I expected online, so I was glad to find this book.Pros: it has extensive descriptions of many indgredients, and makes recommendations by brand names. Includes recipes as well, many unusual and beyond the usual stir fry orbit.Cons: doesn't have a pictorial guide to seafood, what I was after in the first place. There are some pictures of other items, but they are b&w. Color would be better.We took it to a large Ranch 99 and bought many of the exact items suggested and tried a couple of the recipes. Very pleased with the results. We hadn't realized, for example, the big difference between rice "cooking wine" and rice wine, or the many kinds of bok choy.Other shoppers asked for advice, and one ordered it from amazon right there in the store.A very useful book. There's a reason it's been in print so long.

Asian Ingredients is a cookbook in reverse. The familiar formula dictates that a little of the cookbook is dedicated to some cultural background titbits and a glossary; the rest is devoted to recipes. Cost, as his title indicates, offers us a major tour of the foodstuffs with just a sprinkling of recipes throughout. And that is exactly why the book appealed to me. Here you get the best bookish knowledge mixed with personal experience as he gives ingredients not just names, but cultural context, almost bringing them to life as if historical characters. Soy sauce, he tells us in the introduction, "evolved from ancient methods of fermenting and preserving meat and game ¡K" The Chinese value fresh water fish above salt water because the latter are considered to be already partly preserved (less fresh) - salted by the water they swim in. Amongst gems like these are plenty of practical advice for both the market and kitchen. But while the book includes a Region of Use listing for each ingredient, the geographical origin of each recipe is unfortunately left a mystery. The book is also crying out for a separate recipe index. You would not buy this book for the recipes alone but I tried four or five and whenever I wore my reading glasses and did not try to cut corners, I ended up with some really good food. Simple Roast Chicken with Sichuan Pepper (I was drawn to the word Simple), for example got the thumbs up from my friend Linda. The photographs being black and white are not always as illuminating as they should be, and there may be a few questionable facts. For instance, we learn that Dong gwa (gua) is Cantonese for Winter Melon. Not mentioned is the fact that this pronunciation is virtually identical in Mandarin. All in all I would call this an excellent reference.