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| The Oxford Companion to Food 2nd Ed | 
 enlarge | Author: Alan Davidson
Creators: Helen Saberi, Tom Jaine, Jane Davidson
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Category: Book
List Price: $65.00
Buy New: $15.44
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New (47) Used (29) from $14.34
Avg. Customer Rating:  23 reviews
Sales Rank: 58682
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 2nd
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 907
Shipping Weight (lbs): 6.3
Dimensions (in): 11.2 x 9 x 1.8
ISBN: 0192806815
Dewey Decimal Number: 641.3003
EAN: 9780192806819
ASIN: 0192806815
Publication Date: October 15, 2006
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| Customer Reviews:
| Showing reviews 1-5 of 23 | | NEXT » |
 Great resource July 16, 2007
I value the Oxford Companion as a wide-ranging resource although it's very scope allows for general rather than specific accounts of the many food items it covers. Nevertheless, it is great to have at hand and it does come with comprehensive bibliographical information for those wishing to look at topics in more detail.
 Witty and Informative December 5, 2006
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
If you like the dry acerbic wit of P.G. Wodehouse, if you like the straight-faced humour of the Economist, then you'll be a fan of the writing style here. This is a dense, information-packed book that works well as a coffee-table decoration, but you'll find yourself pulling it into your lap and curling up with a nice cup of hot tea/coffee and reading entries at random. The literary tone and multitude of cross-references make this a particularly good way to while away those lazy afternoons. (Remember those pulp adventure novels that, after each entry, asked you to make a choice? "If you choose A, go to p. 235; If you choose B, go to p. 322", etc. This is a little bit like that.)
There are no actual recipes per se, but there are many ideas and tidbits about how certain foods/ingredients are traditionally or commonly eaten in various parts of the world.
Here is one slyly humourous entry that had me choked (!) with laughter:
"CHEEKS of animals, because they usually yield rich, savory juices, are a good choice to include in stews, pies, and sausages. However, because cheek muscles are exercised constantly, the meat is tough and needs long cooking. COD cheeks, on the other hand, are tender morsels, perhaps because cod are not eating all the time and do not exercise their cheeks in making noises."
 Too many errors July 30, 2006
26 out of 37 found this review helpful
As many others have pointed out, this book is quite biased in it's handling of the cuisines of different countries. Yes this book is quite Anglo-centric, but what would you expect? There is also a clear dislike of all things American and the author would have you think that this countries sole contributions to the world of gastronomy are fast food joints and Coca Cola.
However, the reason I only gave it one star is the accuracy of the entries. We have a right to expect that reference works from this publisher be painstakingly researched to present information without error. But there are just too many factual errors to ignore. Three examples serve to make my point.
In an entry about ice cream sundaes, he refers to one of the towns as Two Rivers, Michigan. Two Rivers is in Wisconsin. Next, in an entry for chuck wagon he refers to wranglers as the assistants to the cook. Wranglers handled the movement of the herd and never, ever assisted the cook who almost always worked alone. Third, in an article about the United States, he writes of the emergence of fast food chains including "White Tower" Huh? I'll admit that sliders aren't for all palates, but the chain is White Castle.
There are just three that come to mind but I'm only up to the letter F. Should obvious, easy to research mistakes such as these be tolerated? For me, it brings the accuracy of the entire book into question.
I expected better from Oxford University Press.
Great Reading, Some odd omissions. No recipes. October 31, 2005
16 out of 18 found this review helpful
`The Oxford Companion to Food', edited by the noted English culinary writer and diplomat, Alan Davidson is a foody reader's compendium to lots of interesting articles about sources, history, some people, and most places regarding food and drink. It is quite properly named a `companion' rather than an `encyclopedia', since, unlike the seemingly similar `Larousse Gastronomique', it contains no recipes whatsoever. This is not an accident or oversight, as Davidson clearly states in the introduction that this was an editorial policy from the outset.
This book has a distinctly British flavor about it with its selection of article topics. While there is an excellent longish article on Elizabeth David, easily the most important British food writer of the 20th century, there are no articles on either Julia Child or James Beard, the two most popular and well known American food writers. Alternately, there is an excellent article on M. F. K. David who is much less well known even among Americans. Child and Beard are mentioned but once at the end of an article on American cookbook writing. This choice is an excellent symptom of what this book is all about. It is not about cooking so much as the writing about food culture. While Child and Beard were cookbook writers par excellence, David and Fisher dealt less with food than they did with appetites, impressions, scholarship, and recollections?
The book is oddly selective in other ways. It has an article of goodly length on H. J. Heinz, but nothing on Milton Hershey. These two men are, in the United States, of at least equal renown; they were contemporaries, and both set up their businesses in Pennsylvania at about the same time. Another oddity is the fact that there is an article on Nepal, where, I suspect, very little grows, but no article on Senegal on the west coast of Africa and the ancestral home of many slaves brought to the new world and, therefore, the source of many food memories which contributed to `soul food' cuisine.
This is not to say this is not a valuable book. Many articles give fuller coverage to many culinary subjects than even books that specialize in some subjects. Two sidebar articles on pasta and chilis, for example, give fuller lists of the varieties of these two items than many good cookbooks on the subject. The pasta article is also careful to indicate the regionality of the names of some pasta shapes. I believe the pasta article, for one, could have been even better if it had given us pictures of the various shapes. I really feel that Orecchiette doesn't really look like ears, even though all texts describing it always say it does.
The book also avoids some common mistakes with accurate information on, for example, the components of the sharp vapors from a cut onion. Unlike lots of simpler minds, the article on same points out that these tearing fumes are really composed of many different components, which is part of the reason why most methods for avoiding them don't work.
The book is so dedicated to it's no recipe policy that it doesn't even give us articles on some basic preparations such as `buerre blanc'. It also does not even include recipes for such basics as mayonnaise or pesto.
This book is very good, but it is not as valuable a culinary resource as the aforementioned `Larousse Gastronomique' which provides thousands of basic recipes and pictures for just about everything imaginable, including uniforms of Renaissance culinary guild members. This book is also a bit pricy, listing at close to the price of a copy of Larousse. So, if you are a foody who must own every notable book on food, then buy this. But, if you are only interested in books to help you cook, get the Larousse. Note that the paperback version of this volume is published by Penguin and is therefore known as `The Penguin Companion to Food'.
Exceptional June 6, 2005
8 out of 10 found this review helpful
Perhaps the single most useful, complete and amusing reference book in my collection. It touches on geography, geology, sociology and much else besides. The late editor and journalist Auberon Waugh called this 'The best book written on this, or possibly any other subject.'
The author took twenty-three years to compile this work, dying four years later. It is a work that will live on as long as there are books and a love of food.
It should be on the shelf of every educated person.
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