The Elements of Cooking: Translating the Chefs Craft for Every Kitchen by Michael Ruhlman

The Elements of Cooking: Translating the Chefs Craft for Every Kitchen Reviews

• 
  Misty

  I've always aspired to cook without a recipe, and this book gives me the tools and principles for doing just that. I plan to keep this book handy in my kitchen as a reference guide. Modeled after Strunk and White's Elements of Style, this book has the same structure - essays on important aspects of cooking that are the building blocks of any recipe (stocks, proper salting, temperature), followed by an alphabetical definition of cooking terms and ingredients. Want to know what a mandoline is? Want to know what the proper ratio is for any vinaigrette? You can find it in this section.
  
  This book is very readable, and it has changed how I think about cooking. I highly recommend it for anybody interested in cooking from scratch.
  
  My only criticism of the book is that it's cooking aesthetic is a little too fancy. It insists that I mist make veal stock, but for various reasons that's just not practical. But that is one of the book's strengths. It operates under the philosophy that we can all be great cooks.
• 
  Bill&Iam

  An excellent reference book for the kitchen. Contains no recipes, but rather distills the essentials of cooking into an easily digestible format.
• 
  Claudia Taller

  This book is an inspiration. There are no recipes. In Anthony Bourdain’s introduction, he says “It’s useful these days when everyone, it seems, has an opinion about food, to know what the hell you’re talking about . . . It’s all here. In much the same way as Strunk and White’s classic, The Elements of Style, became an essential reference text on every writer and journalist’s desk, The Elements of Cooking should sit atop every refrigerator.” Ruhlman dives right in with “Notes on Cooking: From Stock to Finesse” and gives us an entire chapter on stock. You need the foundation of a good stock and nothing is better than your own stock that you always have on hand so you can create beautiful food. For stock you need good fresh ingredients (meaty bones that have been roasted) and very low heat (below a simmer). Use some herbs, carrots, and onions for flavor. The best and most versatile stock is veal, which I will never make, but Ruhlman reflects on it and even includes a recipe for a good veal stock. If I owned my own restaurant or cooked nightly for lots of people, I might have my own stock because I like the idea of starting with the basics. But my world is not like that. Ruhlman's is, and I love that he keeps the fine art of cooking well alive.
• 
  Christina

  This cheerless book emulates The Elements of Style by offering definitions of some foundational techniques and ingredients that all cooks should know, according to the author. There's only one recipe, for veal stock: Ruhlman says much home cooking could be improved by the addition of veal stock. I'll take his word on that.
  
  As for the techniques and definitions, I didn't find myself learning much that I didn't already know. For example, the "flavor" definition starts "arguably the most important element of a dish." I think it's really not an argument, first, and second, no duh. What I did learn seemed fairly trivial -- now I know what "hotel butter" is, but to what purpose?
  
  Ruhlman's bibliography does make me want to check out some of his other sources, though, like "On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen," by Harold McGee.
• 
  Joseph

  This is an excellent book. It is more a reference book than a cookbook. Don't buy this if you are looking for recipes. Buy this if you want basics of making stocks and sauces. Those parts of the book make this worth the cost. He then moves to basics like salt and eggs. Then he covers heat and tools. After these basics the book becomes a reference of food terms and food. Ruhlman is thorough to the point of being anal. But, in this instance you want someone who is thoroughly anal. Tony Bourdain, Ruhlman's wrote the info. If you saw the two of them together on "No Reservations" you know they are an "odd couple" ... Michael is definitely Felix and Tony is Oscar. And, yes, Ruhlman is the kind of guy you want to walk up to and muss his hair or wipe tomato sauce on his sleeve. Still, the man can write (and cook).
• 
  Ptwee

  - Loved the introduction (Anthony Bourdain) and the Notes on Cooking section, especially the explainer on how the most important skills in cooking are knowing how to properly salt food, and knowing how to properly use heat.
  - There's a special section on the egg, which makes sense because it's included in dishes that fall on so many points of the heat spectrum... Ruhlman explains somewhere that a chef who has excellent command of the egg will have excellent command of everything else.
  - Well-written prose. Thank you for writing intelligently and elegantly, writing beautifully about high skill without being condescending.
  - Pays homage to existing resources in high-level cooking. Introduction and Notes sections are worth reading all the way through and the rest is a glossary format. I'll be skipping around when I need something.
• 
  Ragallachmc

  Aimed more at the home cook or the kitchen neophyte, this book does contain some nuggets for kitchen pros. The essays at the beginning, although not containing a ton of new information for me, were engaging and thoughtful. I've always liked Ruhlman's prose style, and this is just more of that. Following the essays is a small encyclopedia/index of restaurant and culinary terms. Although not as exhaustive as
  The New Food Lover's Companion, it still covered the basics. Overall, if you know someone who is an amateur enthusiast or a culinary school wannabe, this is a good book to get them started.
• 
  Laura

  This book has a few essays at the beginning and then the rest is like a dictionary of cooking terms. I actually read through the entire thing and learned a lot about cooking. Some of it, I've already put into practice. For example, I'm trying to be diligent about salting food as I go rather than just assuming that I can add the salt at the end. I did this with one of our favorite rice dishes on Friday, and salting early in the cooking process made a remarkable difference in how good the food tasted. Ruhlman calls it the difference between tasting seasoned and tasting salty and I agree. Chris - I starting reading this book in your bathroom two summer s ago. Thanks for the recommendation - I'm glad I finally finished it!
• 
  Stephen

  Michael Ruhlman knows a lot about a lot; he has written a number of successful books sharing his culinary knowledge and experiences. In a deliberate attempt to duplicate what Strunk and White's "The Elements of Style" does for writers, Ruhlman wrote "The Elements of Cooking" in the same style for cooks. The book is more than a dictionary but less than an encyclopedia of cooking. The first fifty pages contain highly opinionated essays about various topics such as veal stock, salt and the proper kitchen tools. The remainder is an alphabetic series of blurbs about tools, ingredients, processes and dishes. While one will not likely agree with everything Ruhlman has to say, there is great benefit in reading this book start-to-finish to learn or review kitchen basics.
  
• 
  Mandie Lowe

  This book contains a few essays on various cooking topics, such as the importance of veal stock and the most important tools the home cook should own, before it becomes a reference book, with alphabetical entries on everything related to cooking.
  
  Despite finding the essays interesting, the rest of the work is not complete enough to recommend this as a "kitchen bible" reference book. The entries are enough to explain a term or ingredient, but in the time of Google, is it enough?
  
  It isn't for me and unless you are a beginner cook with no idea of the difference between a chinois and a tamis, this isn't the book for you, either. Still, 3 stars, a lot of research went into this, but it is simply not comprehensive enough to justify the shelf space.
• 
  Lucinda

  More than anything I was unconvinced by the casual style of this book. This might be partially due to subject matter. The beauty of the Elements of Style is that the authors use the book as an example of exactly what they are talking about. "Finesse," one of the main themes of The Elements of Cooking, can't really be given concrete example in written form.
  
  One thing the book did do: it reminded me that I want to got to French Laundry. The date I can call for reservations is now marked on my calendar!
  
  
• 
  Mindy

  I was disappointed a bit by this book. I guess I didn't investigate it very thoroughly before ordering it, because it was considerably shorter than I'd expected and was geared more towards the serious gastronome... I suppose I'd have known that if I was already a Ruhlman fan, as I know many are.
  
  However, for me, there was far too much detail about doing complex things with meat and lard, etc. Hardly a replacement for broad, basic cookbook tutorials like those I've relied on in The Joy of Cooking.
• 
  Ryan

  The Elements of Cooking is an interesting almost-narrative glossary of most things you'd need to know to understand what a cook is talking about. I learned the definitions of lots of terms that you see on fancy menus (or hear thrown about on Top Chef or on food blogs), what beurre blanc and beurre rouge are and how to make them, and also how to make stock. We made a great deal of that using the Thanksgiving turkey, which was spectacular. I'd highly recommend this book for the non-cook, the cook, and he experienced, snooty cook.
• 
  David Stanley

  "ELements" is not a "cookbook" but you'll learn far more about cooking from "Elements" than you will from 99% of the cookbooks available. It's not a "science" book but you'll learn more science than you ever did in 9th grade Bio (Food science & chemistry, mostly). Plus, Ruhlman's skill as a writer is equal to his skills in the kitchen. As Bourdain says in his Intro, this is one of the books every cook/chef should own. No recipes, just everything you need to know about everything in the kitchen.
• 
  Mjaballah

  Although Ruhlman is a renowned cooking and food journalist this book is not worth buying: I say buying because that was his intention when he structured it as a reference book.
  The only section that is worth the money was the first 50 pages where he does a good job of highlighting the essentials of cooking. Here he goes over the basics of heat, seasoning, eggs, ... etc.
  So in short, if you are a beginner in the world of cooking, the first 50 pages are worth borrowing the book from your local library. Otherwise, get the classical 'on food and cooking' if you are after a cooking reference book.
• 
  Cindy

  I read the intro part to this book which was decent. Half the book is a glossary of cooking terms, so I suppose its more of a reference type book...which is not what I was expecting. I highly recommend the other books he's written, they are all interesting looks into the life of a chef. This one is really only good if you are needing to understand terms in a cookbook that you may not understand.
• 
  Jenny (Reading Envy)

  Well, I'm not sure why Ruhlman bothered to write this book, to be honest, since most of the useful information is taken directly from the books he was influenced by. At least he cites them. I think you'd be better served to go out and buy Escoffier, McGee, and the Zuni Cafe Cookbook (the three he references constantly). Those are the books I'll buy for my kitchen reference collection. Besides.. how could he leave out "in the weeds?"
• 
  Ian

  I've become a big fan of Michael Ruhlman's writing (mostly through his blog), so this seemed like a no-brainer to pick up. At first, the glossary format didn't appeal to me, but the more I read, the more I learned. And the essays that comprise the first 1/4 of the book are compelling reading for anyone who has an interest in the craft of cooking (and cooking well).
• 
  Molly

  Ruhlman's passionate about food, friendly to the novice, and writes with a nice rhythm. I read all the essays at the beginning of the book (veal stock! heat! salt! finesse!) and plan to dip in to the definitions as needed. This strikes me as a lovely -- and literary -- kitchen resource, very "Elements of Style"-ish. I like to think E. B. White would approve.
• 
  Christine

  I picked this up after seeing it on the stack of "new" books at the library. I had read this author's book about his time at the Culinary Institute of America so it caught my eye. I really liked the first 50 pages but was disappointed when it turned into a dictionary of food terms. Not exactly read cover to cover material.
• 
  Alison

  I suspect this book isn't necessarily meant to be read cover to cover--it's a kind of encyclopedia of cooking terms that can help you decipher any menu or recipe--but I read it anyway, because Michael Ruhlman is such a good writer. AND he makes me want to be a better cook, without being condescending at all.
• 
  Christy

  This book is a more straightforward, almost scientific way to look at cooking and the elements that make up the recipes we like. I found it to be really interesting, even if I won't use much of that knowledge.*
  
  *I had to change my review because, after having read it, I found myself thinking. A LOT. Now I am finding that I need my own copy to reference in the future.
• 
  Joshua Hansford

  If you like to cook or want to know more about cooking read this book. The book is filled with knowledge and explainations of just about everything in a kitchen. It breaks the information down into what you need to know to accomplish the task in the kitchen. I have a culinary degree from Le Cordon Blue and I think this should be required reading for Basic Kitchen Skills.