Rating: 
Summary: Disappointingly limited
Review: The Appetizer Atlas claims to take the chef on a world tour through hors d'oeuvres. It also claims to be useful for most professional chefs, caterers, and advanced home cooks. Neither of these claims is entirely true.This cookbook will only really be useful if you want to serve a lot of meat. Admittedly, there are a few recipes in the book that aren't meaty, but 85 - 100% of the recipes from each region (i.e., Italy, North Africa, Central Europe) will contain *lots* of meat. And you won't just need the more traditional meats - you'll also need access to a full range of game and lots of fresh seafood to make good use of this book. While this is interesting, it isn't very practical in this time of fat-watching and calorie-counting, not to mention vegetarianism. Also, this isn't exactly a thorough exploration of the world's appetizers. Most regions have 7 recipes. That means roughly 7 recipes from all of China, from all of Mexico, from all of Eastern Europe. This gets truly ridiculous in the "Indian Subcontinent" chapter, which claims to cover India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Burma, Sri Lanka, Tibet, Bhutan, and Nepal. That's eight countries in seven recipes! It's no surprise that the book barely scratches the surface of anywhere outside of North America, which is divided up by into eight different subregions, each with its own set of recipes. The contrast between the treatments given to North America and the rest of the world only serves to heighten the skimpiness of most of the chapters. This book may be of use to the professional chef or caterer looking for more showy, meat-intensive appetizers with a vaguely exotic flavor. Home chefs will be dismayed to discover chiefly recipes they can expect many of their guests to refuse to eat. And anyone looking for a real survey of the world's starters will be distressed by the limited content and depth of this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Atlas of delight!
Review: This 600+ page tome has a wonderful cosmopolitan approach and organisation to it's wonderful recipes for appetizers from around the world. The background information is very helpful and educational. The ingredients are generally readily available, prep time is reasonable, and instructions are clearly written. Although not necessary, I wouldn't mind if it had more photos in the book or on a website, as some of the appetizers are such appetizing eye candy!
These recipes are perfect for serving at more formal "theme" dinners, and also for serving casual as "comfort food".
The recipes, with simple to complex flavors, are a a great complement to such books as "Hors D'Oeuvres by Eric Treuille, which has even simpler recipes, more pictures, with more of an emphasis on bite-sized portions, ideal for fast and good appetizers. Enjoy both books!
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