Saturday, February 6, 2010

Alton Brown's five best cookbooks

Alton Brown, a Food Network host and commentator, and author of Good Eats: The Early Years, named a five best list of cookbooks for the Wall Street Journal.

One title on the list:
Ratio
by Michael Ruhlman
Scribner, 2009

"Proportions form the backbone of the craft of cooking," Michael Ruhlman says. "When you know a culinary ratio, it's not like knowing a single recipe, it's instantly knowing a thousand. Here is the ratio for bread: 5 parts flour : 3 parts water." In "Ratio," Ruhlman emphasizes "the simple codes behind the craft of everyday cooking," bringing a simple clarity to making everything from sausage to vinaigrette. Forget about teaspoons, ounces, cups and (shudder) fractions; it's all about the "parts." This is a refreshing, illuminating and perhaps even revolutionary look at the relations that make food work.
Read about the other cookbooks on Brown's list.

Also see: T. Susan Chang's 10 best cookbooks of 2009, the Independent's ten best list of children's cookbooks, and Kate Colquhoun's top 10 unusual cookbooks.

--Marshal Zeringue