Author(s): Deh-Ta Hsuing
Publisher: Lorenz Books
Publication Date: 2008-11-25
Pages: 512
Review: I’ve had this cookbook now for about 6 months and have made at least 25 recipes from the book. Each has been a huge success! The book has a detailed section on ingredients and the recipes are well illustrated. After cooking with this book I no longer have the need to visit Thai restaurants to obtain that authentic Thai flavor!Beautiful well organized cookbook. Almost like an encyclopedia of information. Lots of pictures. Excellent recipes. Arrived in just a few days.I am a cook with a strong horticultural background, with a masters degree in Horticulture and many years of growing all sorts of vegetables in home gardens, so I have a special interest in the ingredients used in cooking worldwide. I was a bit disappointed that this relatively new book, which has a large section on ingredients, seemed to skimp on or simply be wrong about a number of important components.
Take the entry on “Snake Beans/Green Beans” for example. In the West, these are mostly sold as “Yard-long Beans”. The book says they are available in “two varieties”, a pale green and a dark green; yet any casual search of online seed sources (such as Baker Creek or Kitazawa) will quickly turn up numerous “varieties” that are mottled lavendar/pink, bright red and dark purple, some of which keep some of their color on cooking, and with seeds from white to red to brown or black, adapted to grow from temperate Japan to tropical southern Thailand and beyond, under dry or extremely humid conditions. Clearly there are far more than “two varieties”, and flavor is dependent on more than color or thickness of the pod (which can also vary depending on growing conditions).
I was also somewhat disappointed by the lack of botanical designations for the plant ingredients. “Taro” and “Yam” for example are common names that can refer to a number of widely dissimilar species of plants, even different genera, and names found in grocery stores can add to the confusion - a fact not mentioned in a section on ingredient selection…
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