Asian Ingredients: A Guide to the Foodstuffs of China, Japan, Korea, Thailand and Vietnam

`Asian Ingredients' by Bruce Cost is one of those books like Patience Gray's `Honey from a Weed' and Claudia Roden's `New Book of Middle Eastern Food' which gets cited as THE authority on its subject by culinary heavyweights such as Ruth Reichl and Alice Waters. So, in my quest for the perfect culinary library, I really need to read and review this book. I am very happy to say that the reputation of this book is not overdone. It is one of the finest books on culinary ingredients I have seen on either Oriental or Occidental cuisines. The author states from the outset that his objective was not to give us an encyclopedic work. What we get is much closer to some of the finer books on Mediterranean cuisine such as Nancy Harmon Jenkins `The Essential Mediterranean'. In many ways, Cost's book is far more practical, albeit less analytical than Jenkins' work.Cost deals with the fairly homogeneous food world of Japan, Korea, China, Viet Nam, and Thailand. He mentions India as an influence on Thai cuisine, but does not deal directly with Indian cuisine, as it is substantially different from the cuisine of China and the rest of the Far East. The book also does not deal with the cuisine of the Philippines or Indonesia, as the cuisines of these two nations are heavily influenced by European colonization beginning in the 16th century.One of the best things about Cost's book is that it is organized in such a way to make it a pleasure to read for background information. While I have never sat down to read the Larousse Gastronomique for pleasure, I read Cost's book from cover to cover with great pleasure, skipping a very few subjects on which I was very familiar. Costs book is divided into the following seven (7) major chapters:Fresh Ingredients including Herbs and Seasonings, Vegetables and Fungi, Meat, Poultry and Eggs, FishPreserved and Processed Ingredients including Dried Ingredients, Cured Ingredients, and Soy and CoconutCondiments and Sauces including Soy based condiments, Fish based sauces, Chili based sauces, Vinegar and spirits, and Flavored oilsSpices, Sugars, Nuts, and Seeds, including Spices, Sugar, Nuts and SeedsRiceNoodles and WrappersFlours and ThickenersCooking Fats and OilsOne of the most dramatic lessons to be learned from this book is the fact that like the Mediterranean respect for dried and preserved ingredients such as salted cod, dried pasta, and dry beans, Asian dried ingredients such as seaweed, vegetables, fish, and mushrooms are highly regarded ingredients in their own right. They are not `second best'. By drying and concentrating their flavors, they bring something to the party that is simply beyond their fresh precursors.Another fairly dramatic discovery is the fact that while so many of the spices prized by Europe and so greatly desired by Renaissance Europe were grown just next door to China and Japan, these spices such as black pepper, nutmeg, cloves, and cinnamon (cassias) really did not and still do not play a big part in East Asian cuisine, except for Thailand, which is influenced by the curries and other spices of India. Northern China and Japan almost totally reject the use of the `cookie spices' except for ginger, which is used heavily throughout the region covered by the book.It is interesting to see both the harmony and the dissonance created when one lays Mediterranean and Far Eastern cuisine side by side. Some of the biggest parallels are the importance of garlic, pork, mushrooms, cilantro, and New World (capsicum) chilis. Some differences are in the relative importance of drying versus salt curing. As Nancy Harmon Jenkins points out, salt is much more important in the Mediterranean cuisines simply because the Mediterranean is saltier than the oceans, so it is a lot easier to acquire than on the Pacific Rim. There are some salt cured pork products, with hams very similar to Smithfield hams, but nowhere near as much of the Charcuterie / salume culture of Western Europe. The greatest differences between the two areas lies in the use of milk. There is simply no milk culture in East Asia from cows, goats, sheep, or buffalo. The Chinese and Japanese feel the same towards Europe's more aromatic cheeses as westerners may feel about fermented fish sauce, birds nests (dried bird saliva), and seaweed. Where the European uses animals' milk, the Asian uses milk refined from soy or coconut.An important part of this book, more important than similar samples in most other books of this type, is the recipes, especially for things such as fish and chicken stocks, which are far simpler than comparable French stocks. They are not just simpler; there is a whole rationale in the Chinese cuisine against including vegetables in chicken stock recipes.Two of the most useful aspects of this book are the recommendations on how to best use Asian markets and which commercial preparations are of a high quality. I had some reservations regarding a local Chinese run farmer's market with a fish counter until I read Cost's description of Asians' regard for freshness in fish. The `Iron Chef' episodes where virtually all seafood ingredients are presented live is not for the sake of show business. These people are SERIOUS about their fresh fish! Note that while this book was originally written and published in 1988, the new paperback edition was revised in 2000, so the numerous comments about which prepared brand name ingredients are the best should be fairly current.This book is so good you will be remiss if you buy any other book on East Asian ingredients without first reading this new edition. Other books may offer better coverage of selected aspects of this subject, but this book is certainly the gold standard against which other books should be measured!Very highly recommended, especially if you like to read about food as well as eat it.

I already own the original 1988 hardback edition, which is a superb and immensely useful book: more than five stars! Here on Amazon it should be easy and cheap for you to  obtain that original edition , and I urge you to do so, for it is far better than this edition, despite the publisher's false claim that this one is "Fully revised and updated".As an owner of the original, I feel tricked and cheated by the publisher. When I ordered this purportedly "new" edition I somehow overlooked the completely accurate Amazon customer review entitled: "Fully revised and expanded"...NOTIndeed, not only have I yet to find anything new in this reprint, but there are far fewer photographs than there were in the original. For example, ALL of the photos of the labels on the bottles and jars of the many recommended sauces and condiments are GONE! When scanning the shelves of a large Chinese supermarket the photos in the original edition were extremely helpful in identifying the right brand, and their absence from the reprint is inexplicable and inexcusable.Even the photos that are included are often not the same as in the original edition...and are much WORSE! Have you ever seen ingenious photos of familiar objects taken from vantage points contrived to disguise what it is that has been photographed? Well, some of these new photos are like that (quite unlike the clear and helpful photos in the original edition). To be specific, I defy all but the most experienced Asian chefs to even identify the photos on pages 23, 41, and 42, as being lemon grass, choi sum, and gai lan, respectively. Whereas the photos in the original edition showed the bases of these plants (crucial for identification) these new photos show only the very tips!I have immense respect for Mr. Cost, and living in San Francisco I was lucky enough to go to his iconic Monsoon restaurant many times before he moved on to the much bigger Big Bowl project in the mid-west (which I have also been to and which is also very good). I can only imagine he was too busy to pay attention to the details of this reprint, for I cannot imagine that someone of his intellectual and culinary caliber would be happy with the end result.Having exhausted my supply of bile, let me end by saying that if you do not already own the original edition and cannot find a second hand copy of the same, then you should immediately click on the Buy Now button for this reprint. Flawed as it is, there is still no other book like it in the English language: you owe it to yourself to have it.P.S. Mr. Cost's earlier book devoted to ginger is equally invaluable, containing many absolutely fantastic recipes. This book has yet to be reprinted, but second-hand copies are readily available here on Amazon:  Ginger East To West: The Classic Collection Of Recipes, Techniques, And Lore, Revised And Expanded .

Asian Ingredients is a cookbook in reverse. The familiar formula dictates that a little of the cookbook is dedicated to some cultural background titbits and a glossary; the rest is devoted to recipes. Cost, as his title indicates, offers us a major tour of the foodstuffs with just a sprinkling of recipes throughout. And that is exactly why the book appealed to me. Here you get the best bookish knowledge mixed with personal experience as he gives ingredients not just names, but cultural context, almost bringing them to life as if historical characters. Soy sauce, he tells us in the introduction, "evolved from ancient methods of fermenting and preserving meat and game ¡K" The Chinese value fresh water fish above salt water because the latter are considered to be already partly preserved (less fresh) - salted by the water they swim in. Amongst gems like these are plenty of practical advice for both the market and kitchen. But while the book includes a Region of Use listing for each ingredient, the geographical origin of each recipe is unfortunately left a mystery. The book is also crying out for a separate recipe index. You would not buy this book for the recipes alone but I tried four or five and whenever I wore my reading glasses and did not try to cut corners, I ended up with some really good food. Simple Roast Chicken with Sichuan Pepper (I was drawn to the word Simple), for example got the thumbs up from my friend Linda. The photographs being black and white are not always as illuminating as they should be, and there may be a few questionable facts. For instance, we learn that Dong gwa (gua) is Cantonese for Winter Melon. Not mentioned is the fact that this pronunciation is virtually identical in Mandarin. All in all I would call this an excellent reference.

Un livre qui doit présenter les ingrédients asiatiques et qui n’a pas de photos: totalement nul!Il est parti directement à la poubelle...A book that is supposed to present the ingredients of Asian cooking without a single picture? Really?It went to the bin immediately....

Even when published Shark Fin Soup was something not to be celebrated - and with a blurb from Alice Waters, who has been talking about sustainable production of food and awareness of sourcing it was simply shocking to find this recipe - I am very sorry i purchased this book - simply horrifying