Good cooking reference, plus cultural references

books:

	• New Food of Life: Ancient Persian and Modern Iranian Cooking and Ceremonies Najmieh Batmanglij Mage Publishers, 1992 - 440 pages average customer review:based on 68 reviews view larger image
	for more information click here

highly recommended

Beautiful & Excellent cookbook

Best Persian cookbook, adjusted for cooks living in the U.S. Pictures are excellent, directions easy to follow, recipes are well developed and results are predictably wonderful. I have given this book as a gift at least four times, and plan to purchase more, I have an earlier edition and don't mind getting the newer edition myself, since pictures and recipes keep getting better and more beautifully illustrated. I am very happy with this cookbook.

Persian Çookbook

Love this cookbook! Not many Persian/English cookbooks on the market that I've noticed. This one is pleasing to the eye and true to its recipes. It also includes cultural aspects that can be useful for the reader. It arrived a little late because it good delivered to the wrong house but it was still in good condition.

for more information click here

Great reference for Persian recipes

This is the best source for Persian recipes. A few ingredients are harder to find, but it has a variety of regional recipes and background and pictures that my Persian husband and his family enjoy.

More a reference than a learning aid

I'm Indian, fairly good at cooking and have persian friends who introduced me to their culture and cuisine. I've enjoyed eating the kababs, khoreshes and their superbly done rice. I wanted to get a cookbook which would educate me further about the food, put it in context and help me try out a few items. This book definitely hit the first two goals - it covers a lot of recipes, puts in a good amount of stories and quotes and has a good reference section. But it comes across as targeted towards advanced/expert cooks - those who want to take it to the next level. My main difficulty with the book is that most of the food pictures are not on the same page as the text. The pictures are not well referenced too (the picture caption points to the text but not the other way around). This makes it difficult to use (there are a few typos in the numbering here and there). Not all the recipes have pictures too. I feel this book could use a good editor - perhaps the second edition would improve on this. For complex items, pictures at intermediate stages would help a lot too.

Otherwise, as most reviewers have pointed out....its great for its holistic approach and the author has put in a lot of her personal memories and tips into it. Superb pictures and collection of recipes in one place. The hardcover finish makes it worth the money. But I wouldn't recommend this as a starting point.

for more information click here

Good cooking reference, plus cultural references

A friend suggested that I buy this book, and at first I was doubtful. I usually find cookbooks and recipes too vague on critical details, and Iranian recipes are worse. But he promised that this one was different. I trusted his words and was happy with the results. Here is my review after one month of using it:

=Pros:
+ Recipes have enough details, and if you follow them you are *almost* there.

+ The print quality of the book is GREAT! I had to re-check the packaging slip to make sure it was as cheap as I remembered. There are many paintings and miniatures included, and the quality is good enough.

+ It has more than cooking instructions. It has stories, poems, cultural ceremonies, etc. Some are pretty interesting to read.

=Cons:
- It is a cookbook. Although a good one, still you should have some idea of what you are doing, your stove and other general knowledge before you can make something really tasty. And you need to practice. But your first attempt is good enough to encourage you to go on, I assure you!

- The table of contents is really ... not clever. There is one list with pointers to regions, e.g. "Rice dishes". Now you have to go to the TOC of "Rice dishes" and find out where is "Chelow X". I wish they also had one global table of contents.

- There are pictures of some of the dishes, but they are not right in front of the recipe page. You have to find the corresponding picture yourself! Not even a mention of the picture on the recipe page.

- This one isn't a negative point, just a general warning. Some of the recipes in this book are not exactly how one would cook them in Iran. They contain elements that many people -at least the ones I know- might not usually use, like Saffron. And there are multiple ways to cook the same dish, obviously, so don't expect to get the same thing you would get in your parent's kitchen/in a restaurant by following the book. Yours might be even more complicated and tastier!

I might come back and update this in a couple of months. But right now, I recommend buying it given my first month experience.

for more information click here

reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

This is a treasury of 240 classical and regional Iranian recipes. 120 colour photographs intertwined with descriptions of ancient and modern ceremonies, poetry, folk tales, travelogue excerpts, and anecdotes make "New Food of Life" not just a collection of recipes but also an introduction to Persian art and culture. Each recipe is presented in a format that is brilliantly logical and marvellously easy-to-follow. You will learn how to cook rice, the jewel of Persian cooking, simply yet deliciously. And by combining it with a little meat, fowl, or fish, vegetables, fruits, and herbs, you'll have a balanced diet - colourful, yet healthy, simple yet exotic.Iranian festivals, ceremonies, and celebrations, together with the menus and recipes associated with them are described in detail: from the ancient winter solstice celebration, Yalda, or the 'sun's birthday', which is the origin of such Western holidays as Christmas and Halloween, to the rituals and symbolism involved in a modern Iranian marriage. Like a magnificent Persian carpet, 1,000 years of Persian literature and art have been woven into the book. Food-related pieces from such classics as the "10th century Book of Kings", and "1,001 Nights" to the miniatures of Mir Mussavar and Aq Mirak, from the poetry of Omar Khayyam to the humour of Mulla Nasruddin are all included. Now with the ingredients for Iranian food available in most US cities, "New Food of Life" makes accessible one of the world's oldest - yet least known - culinary traditions where the first recipes were written 4,000 years ago in a cuneiform script on clay tablets.

for more information click here

hot