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Learn to COOK - Splendid Soups: Recipes and Master Techniques for Making the World's Best Soups
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List Price: $45.00
Our Price: $29.70
Your Save: $ 15.30 ( 34% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Wiley
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 641.813
EAN: 9780471391364
ISBN: 0471391360
Label: Wiley
Manufacturer: Wiley
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 640
Publication Date: 2000-09-22
Publisher: Wiley
Studio: Wiley
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Editorial Reviews:
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Praise for the fully revised and updated Splendid Soups
"Jim Peterson's Splendid Soups is a comprehensive and mouthwatering atlas of the world of soup. It not only covers soups of all nationalities and every garnish, but provides a handy list of sources for every hard-to-find ingredient and kitchen tool, too. More importantly though, through his gargantuan world tour Jim empowers home cooks to strike out on their own and invent new soups. It just makes me want to get into the kitchen and start cooking!" -SARA MOULTON Host, The Food Network's Cooking Live; Executive Chef, Gourmet magazine; Food Editor, Good Morning America
"We love James Peterson. Splendid Soups is a bountiful source of enticing ideas!"-the moosewood collective Authors of the Moosewood Restaurant Cookbooks
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Yum
Comment: This book is what every cookbook should be like. It has a great range of soups from all different areas. He has a lot of classics, but he also adds a lot of tips for variety to mix it up a little bit. His directions are very clear, which is really helpful for me since I'm a first time cook. Even if you're an experienced cook, though, it would be helpful because it provides instructions for how to make up your own soups. It got a James Beard Nomination, and I think that really speaks for itself.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Best soup book I've ever read/used
Comment: This book is great. Take my word for it. Every one of the recipes I've tried has produced a great soup. Plus, there are pages upon pages of history, instruction, explanation, etc. -- which you can skip if you don't wish to read it, but which add to the understanding of what makes a great soup.
One example: Spanish garlic soup. It literally takes less than 15 and produces a fine concoction for a winter evening.
Well worth the price. This guy knows his stuff.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Learn to Make Stocks
Comment: The most useful thing about this book is that it teaches you how to make a good stock. I can't tell you how much it has made a difference in my cooking. I do like the recipes in the book, but more often his techniques are being applied to other recipes vastly improved by my new ability to make a good stock. Once you get into the habit of making stock, you will be horrified at the thought of throwing away bones! Use them to make stock now, or freeze them and make stock later. The recipes are loose, but if you read the opening chapters you will not need absolute precision because you will know what you are doing!
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Good compilation of recipies, but poor quality of each recipe..
Comment: First of all I have to say that I am spanish and I am not writing in my mother tongue. So I have to apologise in advance for my poor English skills.
When I read a review I like to know who write it in order to guess what he expected to find in the book and what sort of judgment he is going to give us.
I am an Spanish Food Engineer. I am not a professional chef but, I dare say, I am an advanced amateur cook.
I read the cookbooks form cover to cover at least twice. I underlain it and even it compare the recipies with other books.
I dont want a compilation of recipies that I left in my shelves for checking a recipe from time to time.
What I expected to find in this book was:
1-A classification of soups.
2-A correct description of the techniques for cooking the soups.
3-A collection of really splendid soups. I dont mind how many recipies the book has, but I mind the quality of each recipe.
I want a perfect recipe for each soup. Whether I like or not the soup, once I have cooked it, it depends on my personal taste.
So with this in mind, here is my review.
1-The book is organized by ingredientes (meat soups, fish soups, vegetable soups..). It makes easier to find a recipe if you have some ingredientes in the refrigerator and you wants to know what to do with them. But it should be arranged by technique as the book "Professional Chef" (CIA) does (consommes, hearty broths, cream soups, puree soups and bisques).You cant remember all the recipies but you can remember the techniques. This is the most didactic way of organize the book if you want to read it from cover to cover.
2-The general description of the techniques are omitted. The author goes straight to the description of the preparation of each recipe. What it is good if you want a compilation of recipies, but it isnt very useful if you really want to learn how to cook soups at your will.
By the other hand, the description of the preparation of the recipies are detailed and correct. Neither it is "over-detailed" nor ambiguous.
3-At first sight, the number of recipies seems to be huge. But once you have read some chapters you will realise that some recipies are almost the same. Organizing the book by ingredients its easy to repeat recipes because you only need to change an ingredient.For example, "Miso Soup" and "Miso soup with egg plant", the first one appears in the chapter of broths and the second one appears in the chapter of vegetables. But both are the same .Another example "Puree of Artichoke", "Puree of Asparagus", "Puree of Cauliflower"...etc.
The number of recipies has been falsely increased
4-I cant say the recipies doesnt works, but I cant say the recipies are excellent.In some cases I am sure the recipe is wrong. As I said I am spanish, and I cant assure that Gazpacho doesnt contain neither chicken broth nor lime. I understand the author wants to transform/interpret some exotic/ethnic soups. But the changes should not become the dish into another thing. Another example is the Bisque. He uses vegetable puree to thick the soup. By definition a Bisque is a soup that only contains crustaceans and the vegetables are only use for give a subtle taste and it should not distort the crustacean taste.
I wouldnt say that from the 400 soups all of them are "splendid". On the contrary, only few ones are good (but not excellent). He should be more concentrated on the quality rather than in the quantity.
5-There are few photographs (8 pages). The "soups" showed by these photos has got so many solids and so few liquid that you would need a fork and a knife for eating it. So it isnt soups, because you dont use a spoon for eating it.
6-The style of writing is a bit arrogant. I agree with other review. He uses a lot the word "I". I think he is too worry about demostrating that he has cooked each soup, because he repeat many times "Each time I cook it..." "I like to eat it.." "I cant image a summer without it.." and so on.
I dont think he has cooked all the recipies, or at least, I dont think he cook the soups with frequency he try to show.
The book contains 400 recipies, really do you think that he eats so often all them during the 365 days of the year?.
On the other hand, he is too precise with very tiny details (add the parsley just 1 minute before serving, for example) but he is too loose with other matters.
Does he pretend to be exquisite? an epicurean?
7-This book has got some good points. The chapter of ethnic soups is excellent. He describes some ethnic and exotic ingredients and also incorporate soups from Thailand, Vietnam, Korea, Japan, China, India Morocco, Mexico etc...
After reading the book you will be able to prepare a soup freely just watching what you have got in the refrigerator.
All in all, I doesnt believe its a masterpiece as other reviewers does. The recipies arent totaly perfect and if you are purist the book will disappoint you.
But if you arent a purist, if you doesnt look for the perfect soup, and if you only want to find a recipe and cook it from time to time, this is your book.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Best Soup Cookbook Ever
Comment: Every recipe was easy to follow and came with set-by-step instructions. All of my favorite soups are from the Splendid Soup cookbook. Everytime I make a soup from this cookbook (which is once a week) I get a thumbs up from my family, especially from the hard to please little ones!!!
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