The New Joy of Cooking

Rating:
Summary: A Bastardized Version of an American Icon
Review: After replacing the lovely/homemaking voice in the text with a rigid/instruction manual feel, after "cleaning up" classic dishes like Maryland fried chicken by replacing butter with less fattening olive oil, and after elminating the invaluable sections on canning and getting maple syrup out of trees, the creaters of NEW JOY present to us yet another casualty of our quickly advancing and impersonal society.

This book is not even a shadow of its original. Please go get a copy of The All-Purpose Joy of Cooking and do not make the mistake of taking this overpolictically correct/sanitized version as the Real McCoy.

I give this book 3 stars only because it thankfully preserves the superb recipes for white bread, french toast, and Christmas Stollen.

Rating:
Summary: great! an absolute must if you desire cooking versatility
Review: i'm having a difficult time understanding why such a large number of people are unhappy with this edition. for those of us who want to try something new and unconventional, this edition has been an absolute blessing. i'm extremely impressed with the variety of recipes included in this volume, and most recipes can be prepared without spending a fortune on outrageous ingredients that are hard to find. i will agree with others who found that the book lacks organization, but the appendix at the end of the book should be able to help find the things you're looking for. give this book a try!

Rating:
Summary: Good recipes, bad organization
Review: I was excited to own this ccokbook since I had heard the original was a must have for any cook. Never having seen the original though, I had no comparison. Every recipe I have tried over the last several months, has come out great. The recipes are very easy to follow and I have not been disappointed in the outcomes. However, this cookbook is not organized well at all. It is difficult to understand why the recipes are sometimes organized in an unusual way. Also the book is lacking in desciptions and illustrations of techiniques that would be helpful, especially to beginners. I would recommend this book for the recipes, but not as the "be all, end all" of the essentials of cooking.

Rating:
Summary: A Major Disappointment
Review: Cooking is an avocation for me and I looked forward to the new Joy of Cooking, especially since it was accompanied by the CD. After looking carefully through both the book and trying the CD, I wound up giving it to the local library book store. Joy has gone from being a leader to being strictly second rate. For a general purpose cookbook, try Bittman, The Cook's Bible or the NY Times Cookbook. The lack of either good basics or any creativity makes this less than worth the money. The CD is simply the worst I have seen. Williams Sonoma is much better. Pass on this one.

Rating:
Summary: Bring back Granny Rom!
Review: A big let-down. I happily bought the "New Joy of Cooking", figuring my old sauce-speckled copy could use an update. When I got the new one home, I found that it had been yuppiefied! Recipes for tzimmes, whatever they are. And tea eggs. And pork satay. No more "Supper and Buffet Dishes". No instructions on freezing food! No section for vegetarian dishes. And woe betide us, no "Fudge Pie", the most begrimed and be-chocolated page in my old "Joy". My advice, buy the earlier edition, and give this one a pass.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent!
Review: I received this book as a gift. Every recipe I've tried has been excellent! A great book for a beginner -- I no longer feel lost in the kitchen, plus my family loves my "homestyle" cooking. Simple, basic recipes. Highly recommended!

Rating:
Summary: Very useful, but some flaws
Review: This is a very good cookbook to have around. It covers basic preparation of almost everything, though some things are lacking that used to be in the older editions (they seem to have added lower-fat recipes and the like).

Also, the indexing could use improvement. I wanted to find alfredo sauce, and the only place it was listed in the index was under "Fettucini", not anywhere under "Alfredo" or "Sauces", so I had a little trouble finding that recipe.

I'd suggest having cookbooks that cover more specific "genres" of food that interested in addition to this book -- but definitely have this book, too.

Rating:
Summary: Great for a beginning domestic goddess!
Review: I'm just beginning to get serious about this whole domestic goddess thing, and a beginning cook who decides to cook dinner for the family every night needs all the help she can get! With this book, I can buy what's on sale at the market (pork loin roast, eggplant, asparagus, whatever) and be confident that this book will tell me how to cook it. It hasn't let me down yet, and I'm having a ball. I never saw the old edition, so I can't compare, but I'm as happy as a clam learning to cook according to the new one!

Rating:
Summary: Fine - but there are better books
Review: I am a college student who actually really likes to cook. When I was first beginning to cook (not that long ago) I, of course, turned to this book because everyone claimed it was THE cookbook to have. Quite honestly, I find it to only be okay.

The strong points: lots of recipes, and fairly complete and informative descriptions of most foods (I especially like the section on fish)

The weak points: it's not very good at teaching you HOW to cook on your own, as in how to substitute ingredients or how to take a basic recipe and jazz it up. Also, the recipe format (with ingredients mixed in with the instructions) makes it harder to make shopping lists and harder to sum up quickly whether or not you have all the ingredients for a dish.

I found Mark Bittman's _How to Cook Everything_ much easier to use and a much better teaching book. Now that some of my friends are also trying to learn how to cook (now that we've moved out of the dorms into our first apartments) they agree with this opinion, though a lot of them appreciate _Joy of Cooking_ for the nostalgic value.

I know this review will be very unpopular with people who grew up with this cookbook, and I agree that it is a classic, but if you're looking for a basic cookbook for yourself or for a someone just starting out on their own, there are better books on the market.

Rating:
Summary: I Love This Book!
Review: I have never in my life seen a cook book so thouroughly written. i am very pleased with this book. I have been cooking since I was 8 years old and know a lot about cooking and enjoy it. This book has given me so many more recipes to try and everyone delicious. Thanks Ms. Rombauer. This book will never be replaced!