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Family Food: A New Approach to Cooking (Penguin Cookery Library)
£3.20
THIS IS A BOOK FOR ALL THE FAMILY TO USE. IT WILL ENCOURAGE CHILDREN TO HAVE A GO AT COOKING WITH THEIR PARENTS. IT WILL PROVIDE TIPS AND ADVICE ON HOW BEST TOFEED YOUR CHILDREN NOW, ESPICALLY WITH THE ABUNDANCE OF READILY AVAILABLE JUNK FOOD AROUND, AND HOW TO START ENJOYING FAMILY MEAL TIMES AROUND THE DINING TABLES INSTEAD OF IN FRONT OF THE TELEVISION. THE AUTHOR WILL COVER THE PROBLEMS OF THE BREAKDOWN OF THE FAMILY UNIT AT MEALTIMES, HE WILL LOOK AT SUPERMARKETS V SMALLER SPECIALIST SHOPS AND HE WILL UNDERLINE THE PLEASURES THAT CAN BE HAD FROM SITTING DOWN TO A FAMILY MEAL TOGETHER.
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Additional information
| Publisher | New edition (4 Mar. 2004), Penguin |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Paperback | 352 pages |
| ISBN-10 | 0140295399 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-0140295399 |
| Dimensions | 19.05 x 3.18 x 20.32 cm |
by Bad Dad
I bought this book after watching and reading much from Heston, but apart from his chips didn’t feel that able to use much from his recipes apart from an attitude of enquiry. So it seemed that as there was a family cookbook that it would be a sensible thing to get it and try that. It works!
I had the book on the bedside table for a week and read it cover to cover. It is very ‘doable’ and the text interesting. Then we started to work through the book and almost every time the results have been very good and surprisingly easy. The one occasion when it didn’t work out was the slow cooked lamb but that was down to not having oven thermometer which was my failure. This has been corrected with a visit to Ikea.
It has also been a very good forum to talk about the process of cooking with my children and to get them involved. A great cookbook. Wish he wrote some more in a similar vein.
by P. Yale
Firstly, this is a great book – right up there with my all-time favourite cooking books. There are some inspirational recipes in there, and even the apparently more traditional ones are discussed in such thorough detail beforehand that you are forced to think through the whole process of preparation and cooking. It really does make you regard these recipes in a new light. Having just acquired a digital temperature probe, I’m especially keen to try the low-temperature cooking that Blumenthal champions.
The only quibble I have with the book is that for one that claims to be aimed at getting children involved in cooking, I could find very few practical techniques or methods or recipes for achieving this. There’s a fair bit of theoretical discussion about the merits of getting children involved in cookery, which I fully endorse. There are also some interesting food tasting experiments, which kids could find fun (and so could adults!) Apart from that, though, the other references to children are almost exclusively about simply urging the reader to get their children involved, about how much Blumenthal’s own children enjoy a particular recipe, or how they themselves enjoyed making it. Mr Blumenthal is lucky – I can’t imagine my own children tackling those particular recipes (too daunting), and some more specifically children-oriented recipes would have been nice. Blumenthal does explicitly distance himself from “gimmicky…happy parent monthly magazine” style recipes in the foreword, but I can’t help feeling that in trying to avoid that particular trap he’s swung the pendulum too far the other way.
Nonetheless, for adults it’s a great book. Don’t hesitate to buy it.
by Lucy Garcez
OK but a bit dull and heavy.
by Annabel
A couple of great recipes I have used over the past 10 years or so.
But many are great to understand the science behind cooking but not useful for everyday use
by Amazon Customer
Good
by Nikolaus M. Braun
There are some nice recipes in there but… So kids love Ketchup, why not take 5kg Tomatoes and make 500ml of your own (with the 3 page recipe)? If your answer is: No thanks, I got kids and no time for this shenanigans then that’s basically the thrust of my critique. £4 on 2nd had OK but not a penny more.
by Mark Harrison
I first came across Heston Blumenthal a couple of years ago, when I was given “Further Adventures in Search of Perfection” as a Christmas present. I liked that book’s obsession and story, but the recipes were all too complex to even consider trying to do at home.
Family Food is a different story – it’s about balancing the “how” with the “why.”
Many cookery books tell you what to do, in a very prescriptive way – exact temperatures, exact amounts, exact cooking times. Blumenthal on the other hand tries to explain WHY you might want to cook a piece of meat to a particular temperature, and then gives advice on how to get the inside to that temperature, rather than assuming that your oven works in the same way as his.
Others have noted that the “getting children involved” aspects of the books seem to just be ongoing requests to parents that they should do so… but I’ve found that the recipes do seem to lend themselves to having places where children as young as five can get involved in a helpful way, and hopefully increase their knowledge of real food as something that doesn’t come in a plastic carton from a supermarket.
The book isn’t perfect – there are the odd things left out (macerate rhubarb for 2 days – but is that in the fridge or at room temperature, Mr. B???) but there are two compelling reasons why I have to give this 5 stars:
– It’s the book we use more than any other, ahead of Delia and even Conran (our previous winners.)
– The sight of my five-year old son, stirring away following one recipe and then turning round to tell his mum “I’m so clever”, as he mixed and mixed.
Oh, and if you’re buying this book and don’t already have one, you’ll end up needing a meat thermometer. Trust me on this.
by Noel Privett
Disappointing. It’s not particularly well written and nor are there many recipes in it, so it neither works as an educational work nor a cookbook. HB is a great chap, so this was very disappointing. We haven’t been inspired to cook anything from it yet.