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The Silver Spoon (Hardcover)
by Phaidon Press
| Category:
Cookbook, Classics, Original books |
| Market price: ¥ 388.00
MSL price:
¥ 378.00
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| Stock:
Pre-order item, lead time 3-7 weeks upon payment [ COD term does not apply to pre-order items ] |
MSL rating:
 Good for Gifts |
| MSL Pointer Review:
More than half-a-century after it was originally published as an Italian culinary "bible", this famed manual has become like wine: the longer it endures, the better it becomes. So, you now have a well-designed plan for every meal: be it a quick snack or a three-course meal fit for a king. |
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Author: Phaidon Press
Publisher: Phaidon Press
Pub. in: October, 2005
ISBN: 0714845310
Pages: 1264
Measurements: 10.9 x 7.4 x 2.5 inches
Origin of product: USA
Order code: BA00934
Other information: US edition
ISBN-13: 9780714845319
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- Awards & Credential -
This book is the English edition for Italy's bestselling culinary "bible": Il Cucchiaio d'argento, and after about a half century it still ranks #636 in books out of millions on Amazon.com as of February 6, 2007. |
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- MSL Picks -
First published in 1950 and revised over time, Italy's bestselling culinary "bible" Il Cucchiaio d'argento, is now available in English. The Silver Spoon boasts over 2,000 recipes and arrives in a handsome (and weighty) photo-illustrated edition complete with two ribbon markers. More than half-a-century after it was originally published as an Italian cookbook; this famed manual has refused to retire. Instead, it has become like wine: the longer it endures, the better it becomes.
The Silver Spoon is divided into 14 chapters (with a preface):
- Eating is a Serious Matter (preface)
- Cooking Terms. This chapter is a comprehensive glossary of all of the cooking terms used in the book. It covers terms for ingredients, cookware, and cooking techniques. "Brown in a Pan: To cook vegetables over low heat in butter or oil until they go a light golden color. This is particularly common with thinly slice donion or garlic cloves. Meat or vegetables may also be cooked in oil or butter in a skillet over high heat until a rich, even brown in color during the first or final stage of cooking." Equally detailed descriptions are given for everything from "Aceto Balsamico" to "Whisk/Beat". Experienced cooks may find these descriptions unnecessary, but as an amateur, you will really appreciate them. The definitions of Italian words "Cacciatore", "Ribollita", etc. are the only indications in the entire book of the origins of any particular dish.
- Tools and Equipment. This chapter gives information on the types of cookware necessary for the recipes included, some notes on kitchen organization, and two full-color pages of pictures of the different types of cookware necessary.
- Sauces, Marinades, and Flavored Butters. This chapter includes recipes for nearly every sauce that you've ever heard of - including all of the mother sauces, each with two to ten sauces based on them. This chapter is divided into the following subchapters: Hot Sauces; Cold Sauces; Marinades; Flavored Butters (five pages of recipes for these).
-Antipasti, Appetizers, and Pizzas. This chapter includes Crostini, Pates, Quiches, Canapes, and many others.
- First Courses. Soups, Pasta (fresh and dried), and Rice Dishes, Eggs and Frittata
- Vegetables. How to prepare every vegetable under the sun and salads. The salads chapter seems a bit short, though meat and seafood salads are including in those sections.
- Fish, Crustaceans, and Shellfish. This chapter includes information on serving sizes, cooking techniques, and how to get rid of lingering fish smells in the kitchen. It has separate subchapters for 32 types of fish, 12 types of shellfish, snails and frogs (5 recipes for frogs alone)
- Meat and Variety Meats. This chapter gives information on Cuts of meat (Both Italian and American) for Lamb, Pork, Beef, and Veal, along with several hundred recipes. Also includes bits on sausages and "Variety Meats", or Offal.
- Poultry. The basics (Chicken, Turkey, Duck) with Squab, Capon, and Guinea Fowl.
-Cheese. A short chapter giving first Courses and appetizers using cheese.
- Game
- Desserts and Baking. This chapter gives recipes for every type of pastry imaginable, frostings and sauces, creams, puddings, you name it.
- Menus by Celebrated Chefs. This chapter includes menus with recipes from 23 Italian, Italian-American, and Anglo-Italian Chefs and includes Lidia Bastianich and Mario Batali.
The book contains both a list of recipes by ingredient and a comprehensive index.
The recipes are not direct translations from the Italian - the translators have converted ingredients into imperial units and have written the instructions so that they are more descriptive. The recipes are easy to read and to understand. For the most part, the writing is concise, but instructions are given in such a way that a person unfamiliar with a technique used can easily complete the recipe while the Italian version was apparently written for more advanced cooks. One unusual feature is the large section on vegetables. Too many cookbooks have huge sections dedicated to meat but a tiny vegetable section containing only a few recipes for carrots, potatoes, and corn. The Silver Spoon contains recipes for dozens of vegetables, including finnochio, mushrooms, artichokes, cabbage (all kinds), parsnips, turnips, chard, and cardoons, in addition to recipes for the more common types.
No wonder many North American mothers present this book as invaluable gifts to their newly married daughters!
Target readers:
Food lovers, housewives, professional cooks, or hotel and restaurant managers.
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Phaidon Press is an international publisher of books on the visual arts with offices in New York, London, Paris and Berlin, and distributors worldwide. It has had a long and fascinating history, as recorded by art historian Nigel Spivey for Phaidon's 75th anniversary in 1998.
"By means of beauty, beautiful things become beautiful." Phaidon has a long and distinguished history as an art book publisher. The company was founded in Vienna in 1923 by Dr. Bela Horowiz and Ludwig Goldscheider and named after "Phaedo", Socrates' pupil who spoke on the immortality of the soul. Their key objective was to deliver quality books at affordable prices. They were able to achieve this as pioneers of the international co-edition and with large print-runs. Their first titles were not art books, but books on literature, philosophy and history. Phaidon's large format art books first emerged in 1936 with high-quality plates on Van Gogh, Botticelli, and the French Impressionists.
Today Phaidon books are recognized worldwide for the highest quality of content, design, and production. They cover everything from art, architecture, photography, design, performing arts, decorative arts, contemporary culture, fashion, and film. Phaidon books continue to be so innovative and beautiful that as Nigel Spivy points out in his fuller account of Phaidon's history, "a readership is rightly disposed to buy a Phaidon book for no other reason than that Phaidon has produced it".
(From phaidon.com)
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The Silver Spoon is the most influential and successful cookbook in Italy. Originally published in 1950, it became an instant classic. Considered to be essential in every household, it is still one of the most popular wedding presents today.
The Silver Spoon was conceived and published by Domus, the design and architectural magazine famously directed by Giò Ponti from the 1920s to the 1970s. A group of cooking experts was commissioned to collect hundreds of traditional recipes from the different Italian regions and make them available for the first time to a wider audience. In the process, they updated ingredients, quantities and methods to suit contemporary tastes and customs, at the same time preserving the memory of ancient recipes for future generations. They also included modern recipes from some of the most famous Italian chefs, resulting in a style of cooking that appeals to the gourmet as well as the occasional cook
A comprehensive and lively book, its simple and user-friendly format makes it both accessible and a pleasure to read. It provides an introduction to every course, and an explanation of the main type of ingredients. Never translated before, The Silver Spoon has now been adapted to an international market, with every recipe checked for suitability, measurements converted and methods rewritten to accommodate cultural differences, yet maintaining the authenticity of real Italian cooking.
The new layout emphasizes its contemporary appeal and the colour coding of each section simplifies the process of cross-referencing ingredients and methods. A section with original menus from the 15 most famous Italian chefs of the last 50 years has been expanded to include original menus from Italian celebrity chefs working outside Italy.
This is a substantial and prestigious cookbook that will share the bookshelves with other titles such as The Joy of Cooking and Larousse Gastronomique, another classic of national cuisine. With over 2,000 recipes illustrated with specially commissioned artwork and photography, the book is destined to become a classic in the Italian cooking booklist for the international market.
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| View all 11 comments |
A reader (MSL quote), USA
<2007-02-06 00:00>
First off, this book is huge. This great cookbook from Phaidon Press is filled with great color photos and is smartly organized. They had great source material to work with, but it is well edited. Rather than use step-by-step processes, each recipe is a brief paragraph on how to prepare it. Some of the ingrediants seem as if they might be hard to come by, but the overwhelming majority of the 2,000+ recipes use readily available ingrediants. Definitely worthwhile for both the rising beginner and the experienced cook, foodies will love it, and all of my friends "ooo" and "aah" over it.
The one "downfall" is it's sheer size. Phaidon has solved this by making a spine that stays open to your desired page. Also appreciated are the two ribbon bookmarkers to switch between recipes handily. Overall, a great addition to the kitchen.
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David Bielby (MSL quote), USA
<2007-02-06 00:00>
If you are looking for an innovative, unusual gift that will be used over and over again, this may be it. This practical cookbook has virtually everything you could want to develop true, authentic Italian cuisine without much effort.
One of the key reasons I developed an interest in this is because my wife and I love Italian restaurants in our city. Not only that, but I discovered that heart disease and cancer rates are lower among Italians who live in Italy than they are in Italians who live in America who have shifted to an American diet. Italy is part of the 'Mediterranean Diet' countries who have this research behind them. So by using this cookbook, one can develop a 'Mediterranean Diet' while having fantastic Italian cuisine.
Each page is developed with one menu item...instructions so easy that even a guy who doesn't cook (that's me) can make a menu item with ease.
Most of the ingredients are really easy to find. The items taste great, and I think most cooks would actually truly appreciate this as a Christmas gift. So add it to your shopping list if you haven't finished buying yet. You gotta try this out as an item.
You won't regret it. Five stars in my view.
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Mika Greene (MSL quote), USA
<2007-02-06 00:00>
I've never been much of a cook, but love Italian food with a vengance... so, I picked up The Silver Spoon thinking that maybe it could help teach this old dog some new tricks. Well, not that I'm trying to toot my own horn, but I can officially say that I have learned quite a few dishes already! And they came out really good! Not at all as hard as I expected and much better tasting than expected. My goal is to have a little staple of dishes that I can excel at in the kitchen, and I plan on gleaming them all from The Silver Spoon!This is a five star cookbook!
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Tim Janson (MSL quote), USA
<2007-02-06 00:00>
Wow! That's the first thought I had when I saw this massive tome. At over 1200 pages and over 2000 recipes, it's certainly the largest cookbook I've laid my hands on. Part instruction and part reference manual. More than a cookbook this is about food and how food should be prepared and presented, as all of these elements combine to make a great meal. The book has been around for some 50 years so obviously they know what they are writing about. While I would agree that due to it's size and scope, it is for the serious cook, you need not be an expert to use it. In fact its clear and concise lay out and instruction on cooking terminology should prove invaluable to the newbie cooks. The book is laid out in sections dealing with subjects like equipment, anti-pasta, Veggies, meat, poultry, seafood, desserts, etc... and spans the whole of Italy's various regional tastes.
This isn't a breezy talkative book. It's not by some personality who shares stories and amusing anecdotes about cooking. This is like a straight-forward textbook for cooking and in that regard it succeeds tremendously. Honestly you can spend hours just turning the pages to see what comes next. This is a great gift to the cook in your home.
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