Rating: 
Summary: Truly More Than Just a Thai Cookbook!!!
Review: "Cracking The Coconut" is much, much more than a Thai cookbook. Within the pages of this book, the reader will learn Thai history and food history. The author, Su-Mei Yu, puts her heart and soul into every chapter of this book. Truly a work of love reflecting her heritage, her family, and her love of life and good food. The recipes in the book give the amateur Thai cook plenty of easy choices. The more experienced Thai cook will find even more challenging dishes to prepare. Enjoying a meal at either of the Saffon restaurants is always a new and exciting experience. Now everyone can enjoy these delicious dishes at home. Few cookbooks can offer this much pleasure to the reader.
Rating:
Summary: Truly More Than Just a Thai Cookbook!!!
Review: "Cracking The Coconut" is much, much more than a Thai cookbook. Within the pages of this book, the reader will learn Thai history and food history. The author, Su-Mei Yu, puts her heart and soul into every chapter of this book. Truly a work of love reflecting her heritage, her family, and her love of life and good food. The recipes in the book give the amateur Thai cook plenty of easy choices. The more experienced Thai cook will find even more challenging dishes to prepare. Enjoying a meal at either of the Saffon restaurants is always a new and exciting experience. Now everyone can enjoy these delicious dishes at home. Few cookbooks can offer this much pleasure to the reader.
Rating: 
Summary: An excellent Thai cookbook
Review: After looking at maybe 20 Thai cookbooks and buying a few others, I now wish that I bought this one first.The author grew up in Thailand, and clearly did extensive culinary research in the preparation for the book. In addition to the recipes, she offers some rather specific techniques as well as background on ingredients. In this sense, it is similar in concept to Rick Bayless' cookbooks on Mexican cooking. While I can't claim an extensive experience in Thai cooking and culture to comment on its authenticity, the ingredients and techniques are identical to those I learned at cooking school in Thailand, and the results taste familiar as well. I agree with some of the comments above as to the need to some of the somewhat labor intensive preparation of curry pastes she advises. I have made them from scratch (not really that hard, if you have done it a few times and have a strong arm for the mortar and pestle) and used prepared ones, and, while I think the homemade ones are better (more subtle, more complex, more "fresh"), I usually use them only for special occasions. And after the homemade ones have sat in the fridge for a while, the difference is less distinct. But I appreciate a cookbook that at least encourages you to try to make your own paste! I also agree that the homemade coconut milk exercise is not worth the trouble. The coconuts I can get here in Michigan are just not consistently that good, and I can't tell the difference in the finished product. Still, I was glad that I had a chance to try making it at least once. Yes, the author does offer substitutions, such as miso for shrimp paste, but she also makes it clear that these are substitutions and describes the rationale for them. In this way, I think she is better than some ethnic cookbook authors who write stuff like: "Don't even consider making this dish unless you have access to the special veal kidney sausages made by my dear friend Pierre Gallimard at his family's boucherie off the Place Vendome....." My biggest complaint is that there are not enough drawings in the book. The author tries to describe certain techniques (like making sticky rice bundles in banana leaves) that would be much easier to understand with a simple line drawing.
Rating: 
Summary: Not Quite What It's Cracked Up to Be.
Review: Cracking the Coconut is quite interesting in exploring traditional Thai cooking as it was done historically. It is a good read but somewhat less useful as a cookbook. Although the the book claims to dispel the notion that Thai cooking is difficult and to make Thai cooking "accessible to everyone," I found that not to be the case. In too many recipes you are required to leaf to another recipe to find out how to prep an ingredient before you can proceed. (Although the book claims 175 recipes, a large number are really parts of other recipes, so the number of finished dishes is much smaller.) The author's insistance on the time-consuming process of making coconut milk from scratch makes no sense for a busy person in the U.S. where the coconuts available are neither as fresh nor as mature as those in Thailand: when I've made it here the results were not noticeably better than good brands of canned coconut milk. Likewise preparing all curries and sauces from scratch is simply not practical for many people -- the book would be more useful and make Thai food more accessible if it gave brand name alternatives and recipes that make use of available pastes. Most Thai homecooks, even in Thailand, buy ready-made pastes and sauces from the market. It is often how those store-bought ingredients are used during cooking that make a difference in the final dish. I also found that the recipes and overall emphasis of the book did not echo my experience of eating Thai food in Thailand over ten visits with my Thai wife. The author says that salt, Thai pepper, garlic, and cilantro root provide "the special essence that is the foundation of Thai food." This might be true historically, however, for me, fresh herbs such as lemongrass, Thai basil, galanga, kaffir lime, etc. really constitute the spirit of Thai cooking and distinguish it from other cuisines. My Thai friends would all name Thai chiles (prik kee noo) as closer to the heart of Thai cooking than peppercorns and not merely a flavoring accent as the author insists. The author's use of salt in nearly every recipe is also different from what I've observed throughout Thailand where Fish Sauce is a more key ingredient. And for a cookbook that prides itself on being authentic, there are some unneccesarry usages of non-thai ingredients such as olive oil, miso, Chardonnay or Vermouth, and peanut butter. The substitutiton of miso for shrimp paste in a curry paste produces a result tasting neither authentic nor traditional. The author's choice of herbs in some recipes is also odd and not always true to how those dishes are commonly flavored in Thailand. It is an interesting read but there are a number of other Thai cookbooks just as authentic with recipes that more accurately reflect the exciting flavors of present-day Thai cuisine. It is not "the first time the tastes, techniques, and traditions of Thai home cooking" have been published, as the book's jacket would like us to believe.
Rating:
Summary: My friend LOVED it.
Review: I am always trying to find new and fun cookbooks for my best friend who is an avid kitchen experimenter. I bought the book, Cracking the Coconut, by Su-Mei Yu along with a couple of the basic items listed for her birthday and she loves it. Not only did I receive a wonderful thank you, but I've also enjoyed sampling the recipes she has tried. She even let me try one with her (Namm Prikk Goong Nang)and it turned out great. (If you knew my lack of cooking skills you would be surprise!)The stories and history about Thai cooking make it a differnt and interesting type of cookbook.. and yes, I've actually ended up buying one for myself.
Rating:
Summary: Very nicely done!
Review: I had some hesitation in purchasing this book because the name didn't seem very thai, (half thai myself and was raised on the "real deal" as well as have been in several towns in thailand for months at a time pre-cooking years, I didn't want an americanized version of thai food) but then I had seen you on the show Cooking Live where your methods were in the same manner my mother cooks, but more of an easier measuring manner as opposed to trying to write down her recipes by watching her and her "eyeing" measurements! I just have to know the measurements before trying to alter it! I love this book and would highly recommend it to anyone who would want to learn the basics in traditional and not americanized thai cooking, and also who is not wanting to take the lazy way out as that other reviewer was referring. The book is to show you how to make it from scratch, and not looking for a review of canned goods or just out of the can. If all of the ingredients were exactly the same and just in a can, why would a cookbook even be needed? I don't know of many grocery stores, let alone asian markets, ESPECIALLY in California that wouldn't have fish sauce! I've lived in 4 different parts of the country since leaving home, and haven't ever had any problem in finding the majority of the ingredients shown in this book. From Indianapolis, to Phoenix, to Las Vegas and now a very small town in Michigan, they have their own asian section in the local grocery stores! Also, such as the other reviewer criticized Pad thai, each creation varies in the preparation per cook as it would in any family, just as I'm sure everyone has a different way to prepare something as simple as meatloaf. I love this book and its a good substitution for moms cooking, but yes every time I'm at home, I do put in my orders for my moms home cooking, just as any other person would with a great cooking mom! Khap Kuhn Ka Su-Mei!
Rating:
Summary: A wonderful book to have!
Review: I have travelled extensively around the world. I have had truly wonderful authentic meals and some horrible ones too. I own this book and love it. It may not be 100% authentic, but I know that I can not get some of the required ingredients where I live etc. I enjoy attempting the recipes with recommended substitutions. I think that part of the fun of cooking is learning to experiment with different ingredients...even if that means you move away from more traditional or "authentic" ingredients! I always enjoy reading good cookbooks and "Cracking the Coconut" did not disappoint in the least. I am happy to have added it to my collection, it is well worth the read. You can travel to many different regions of a country and see the same type of "dish", but it usually does not taste or look quite the same. Why?. Because most people put their own signature to their cooking. Is their cooking then less "authentic" because of it?...No! I would say it is all the more authentic for it. This is a cookbook well worth owning...even if you do not think it is "authentic". Thank you Su-Mei Yu for putting it to paper :).
Rating:
Summary: A wonderful book to have!
Review: I have travelled extensively around the world. I have had truly wonderful authentic meals and some horrible ones too. I own this book and love it. It may not be 100% authentic, but I know that I can not get some of the required ingredients where I live etc. I enjoy attempting the recipes with recommended substitutions. I think that part of the fun of cooking is learning to experiment with different ingredients...even if that means you move away from more traditional or "authentic" ingredients! I always enjoy reading good cookbooks and "Cracking the Coconut" did not disappoint in the least. I am happy to have added it to my collection, it is well worth the read. You can travel to many different regions of a country and see the same type of "dish", but it usually does not taste or look quite the same. Why?. Because most people put their own signature to their cooking. Is their cooking then less "authentic" because of it?...No! I would say it is all the more authentic for it. This is a cookbook well worth owning...even if you do not think it is "authentic". Thank you Su-Mei Yu for putting it to paper :).
Rating:
Summary: Excellent, traditional thai cooking...
Review: I watched Su-Mei Yu's being interviewed locally here in San Diego. After seeing it, I decided to try her restaurant here. It's a great local Thai noodle restaurant and serves her famous excellent Thai Chicken.
Upon eating there twice, I decide to buy her 2 books. I absolutely love her book. Her dishes optimizes the combination of sweet, salt, sour, spicy that you REALLY can't figure out the breakdown of elements of spices when you eat the food.
After making rounds at the local Asian grocery store to buy all the ingredients one afternoon (couldn't find green peppercorns or Thai white peppercorns), I adventured making her Crying Tiger dish, a Bangkok Chicken dish that they don't serve here in US. It was awesome!! My mouth still salivates when I think of this dish. It's so good that I made it again the next day for dinner.
Can't wait to discover some of her other recipes. Being Asian American, Su-Mei Yu also incorporates some famous Chinese dishes as well!!
Rating:
Summary: My favorite book on Thai cooking
Review: I will probably have to buy a new copy in the next couple of years because the one I currently own is falling apart...especially the sections on making curry pastes. My favorite by far is the Panang Chile Paste. Takes awhile to make, so I usually make several batches at once. I have also substituted chicken, pork, shrimp and white fish for beef in the Panang Neur recipe. I have used several Thai cookbooks in the last twenty years. This is the only one that has satisfied me. I do wish there were more diagrams and illustrations.
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