Cookbook Review

Wonderful Wonderful Danish cooking, by Ingoborg Dahl Jensen was the first book I reviewed.

The intended audience of this book appears to be Americans due to Jensen's use of comparing American food and Danish food and their similar tastes. The Jensen also gives off the impression that he is an adept professional at Danish cooking because of his Danish background and insight into Danish history. Also, in the introduction, Victor Borge gives a review of the book and how pleasing the dishes are to his Danish appetite.

Separating the different types of food and cooking methods (bread from cake and baking from dinning recipes) makes the book more coherent. His consistency of giving illustrations at the beginning of each chapter definitely allows the book to flow quite well.

This book is well organized, complete with an intro and background on the origin on Danish cooking methods. Near the beginning, the book offers various places where the reader may obtain the ingredients they will be needing before they start. Giving the reader a brief explanation on the ingredients they will be using and the method of cooking they will follow helps the reader build confidence that they know what they are doing before they start. Then it goes about listing the recipes. It is short, sweet, and to the point.

Unfortunately, there are not many pictures of the types of food that the book contains. More illustrations would give the reader a better idea of what they are to prepare. The few illustrations the book does harbor are not very insightful or detailed.

The second book I reviewed is called The Easy Way to Chinese Cooking by Beverly Lee.

This book appears to be directed more towards beginners due to both the title and organization of the book. It contains a list of all the cooking materials you will need to prepare the meals detailed within the book, which seems similar to a starter kit of sorts. The way the book is organized allows the reader to take everything one step at a time, which is quite convenient. One flaw in the organization of the book is the fact that the suggestions for where to find the ingredients are listed at the end of the book and the actual ingredients themselves are listed near the beginning.

The author immediately establishes herself as an expert by pointing out that she is an instructor at the China Institute in New York City.

The book is moderately coherent because of its consistet format of giving everything you need to get started at the beginning and then working its way up to the more advanced recipes. There are some slight breaks in coherency, because there are illustrations of only certain ingredients and dishes. The illustrations are however, highly insightful, so the reader will be able to more easily determine what he or she is preparing.