not bad, but dated
4 stars
This cookbook was possibly a revelation when it was first published in the 70s - I'm no cook, but the dishes and recipes look authentic (yes, that's a real word), and I appreciate the Cantonese names spelled out in English, but there's no backstory around the recipes (the ingredient glossary has more description), and my biggest complaint is the title. This is a Chinese cookbook, naming it the Complete Asian Cookbook is overly grandiose and dismissive of the rest of Asia, but I suppose the Incomplete Not All Asia Cookbook doesn't have the same verve. This is a revised edition published several years (which I found not surprisingly as the only cookbook in an eventually failed Vegas hotel casino gift shop run by white business people who thought they were catering to Chinese tourists), but these days you can find more in-depth and regionally or cuisinally specific Chinese cookbooks with …
This cookbook was possibly a revelation when it was first published in the 70s - I'm no cook, but the dishes and recipes look authentic (yes, that's a real word), and I appreciate the Cantonese names spelled out in English, but there's no backstory around the recipes (the ingredient glossary has more description), and my biggest complaint is the title. This is a Chinese cookbook, naming it the Complete Asian Cookbook is overly grandiose and dismissive of the rest of Asia, but I suppose the Incomplete Not All Asia Cookbook doesn't have the same verve. This is a revised edition published several years (which I found not surprisingly as the only cookbook in an eventually failed Vegas hotel casino gift shop run by white business people who thought they were catering to Chinese tourists), but these days you can find more in-depth and regionally or cuisinally specific Chinese cookbooks with origin stories and biographical interest and even full Chinese names of the dishes, like those from Fuschua Dunlop, Grace Young, Brandon Jew., the Leung family...