Member Reviews
I read cookbooks like novels front to back. This is a beautiful book with very tasty looking recipes. I enjoyed looking through it very much
I looked forward to reading this - I loved Vincent Price, love cookery books, but was a little disappointed that it is actually very difficult to read as the text looks like poor quality photocopying. The illustrations are charming, and I'm sure there are many wonderful recipes, but the text is so difficult to read, apart from the modern-day notes and introduction. I think I just hadn't expected a facsimile, rather a modern readable text, but should have guessed when I saw it was a Dover publication (I have many Dover books but know that they are usually facsimile rather than modernised text). Perhaps a hard copy is more legible, but my copy is digital.
Thank you to the publisher for a review copy.
Almost everyone is familiar with Vincent Price as a famous actor, and some are aware that his wife was a well-known costume designer. However, Price had an art history degree from Yale, and his hobby was gourmet cooking, where he and his wife tested historical recipes. Mary and Vincent Price's Come into the Kitchen Cook Book is a compilation of these recipes and a historical account of food.
The book is fascinating, since it isn’t just a bunch of old recipes, but instead, recipes and information from Victorian America and Modern America. The book contains historical pictures of Victorian kitchens, a wine glossary, a primer covering home wine making as well as types of wine, choosing and storing wine, and wine basics. The recipes range from baking powder biscuits to French crepes and German pancakes. The Victorian recipes include Brownstone Front Chocolate Cake with Caramel Icing, Brown Betty, Vol-Au-Vent of Eggs, and classic Parker House Rolls. In the Modern America section, you will find Crab Louie and Tuna Casserole, as well as Sukiyaki, Texas Spareribs, and Corned Beef Cheeseburgers.
The recipes aren’t the expected ones that seem to be found in every other historical cookbook, and certainly reflect the eclectic tastes of the authors. There are plenty of recipes to choose from, and the recipes are written in a way that they are concise and easy to understand. Rather than pictures of the dishes (there are only a few of food), there are illustrations, which adds to the historical feel of the book. However, most cooks prefer to see pictures of the dishes they are going to make, and that is the one drawback to the book. It’s nice to see pictures of kitchens from earlier times, but it is better to see finished dishes.
Mary and Vincent Price's Come into the Kitchen Cook Book would make a nice addition to a cookbook library, especially for cooks who enjoy trying recipes from the past.
Special thanks to NetGalley for supplying a review copy of this book.
My apologies – I did not have the chance to read this book before the epub expired. Thank you for the opportunity.