Product Description

"This is a book about what we eat in America," says David Rosengarten in his cookbook It's All American Food. For Rosengarten, author of The Dean & Deluca Cookbook among others, this means ethnic specialties like Eggplant Parmigiana and Shrimp Egg Foo Young; regional dishes, such as Philly Cheesesteak, plus barbecue, including Carolina Pulled Pork Shoulder with Two Sauces; and classic American fare like his Best Buttermilk Pancakes and The Ultimatre BLT, which transcends cultural boundaries. Offering more than 400 recipes for coast-to-coast favorites, Rosengarten is at pains to show that our cuisine is endlessly (and admirably) elastic, embracing and transforming traditional, sometimes exotic fare into something distinctly American for which we need not apologize. If he labors this point, Rosengarten has nonetheless done readers a great service in collecting so many characteristic recipes, which have often lacked the thoughtful treatment supplied here. This can mean tweaking more dubious (or degraded) recipes, lightening, for example, General Tso's chicken, or simply finding model formulas, like those for his cobb salad and macaroni and cheese (his recipes sometimes call for convenience ingredients, like banana pudding mix, that signify authentic versions). His section on regional favorites is a mini-guide to the best local dishes from New England to Hawaii, while his ethnic explorations present the food of virtually every group to have settled here--dishes that have gained acceptance, usually, through restaurant interpretations. Rosengarten has, of course, also eyed sweets, and treats such as tiramisu and New York cheesecake are also accounted for. With useful technical illustrations, ingredient notes like Spanish Paprika, and informative asides such as The Perfect Spatezel Method. --Arthur Boehm

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Product Details

Publisher	Little, Brown and Company
ISBN	0316159204
Format	Paperback
Author	David Rosengarten
EAN	9780316159203
Label	Little, Brown and Company
Dewey Decimal Number	641
Studio	Little, Brown and Company
Number Of Pages	512
Title	It's All American Food: The Best Recipes for More than 400 New American Classics
Publication Date	2005-05-10
Manufacturer	Little, Brown and Company

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Customer Reviews

Good writing, reliable recipes

Review by tired bob, 2008-08-04

David Rosengarten is one of those cookbook authors whose books I'll buy sight unseen. I have the Dean and DeLuca Cookbook and Taste which are both excellent, and by excellent I mean that following the recipes yields predictably excellent results; a cookbook with unreliable and irreproducible recipes is useful only as a doorstop or something to be catapaulted into the raucous party next door at 3am.

This particular book is a bonafide good read as well as a treasure trove of recipes brought by the immigrants to this country that gradually became assimilated into existing cultures. Rather than an exhaustive compendium of every ethnicity's signature dish, he zeroes in on a handful of recipes from many, which allows for the book's wideness of scope. He also similarly addresses America's regional cuisine in a fashion that highlights the regions' local ingredients.

Another plus: Rosengarten takes pains to try to limit ingredients to what can be found at a well-stocked supermarket, which makes it pretty easy to cook on a whim.

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Outstanding.

Review by W. Corder, 2008-05-18

An earlier poster sums it up perfectly. "Ask your friends their favorite dish from childhood, pick up this book...and make a better version". I have tried almost every recipe in this book and every recipe truly is consistantly BETTER, whether it's chicken and dumplings, a lowly corn dog or vanilla ice cream. I have over 200 cookbooks, all by professional chefs/authors. All top notch books, but only 3 come off the shelf every week because you just can't find a losing recipe in any of them. The other two favorits are Chef Paul Prudhomme's Seasoned America and Jamison & Jamison's American Home Cooking (which is really an anthology of great American recipes).

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Kitchen necessity

Review by N. Martin, 2008-03-10

If you like international food and regional food you will love this book! There is a great range of recipes, each is clearly and entertainingly written, and they taste GOOD.
I cook a lot but I only have two cookbooks, the Joy of Cooking and It's All American food. Joy takes care of the basics but when you get tired of "traditional" American food like Ham Loaf and the disparaging comments about hush puppies-- turn to It's All American Food!
When I first got this book I felt like the recipes often called for more ingredients than I wanted to buy. But since then I've relaxed a little and if I don't have shallots, onions seem to work fine (for example). On the other hand if you want to fully enjoy using all the authentic ingredients this book is perfect.

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Wonderful food gets the treatment it deserves

Review by Maggie, 2008-02-26

I am a big David Rosengarten fan, but this is actually my favorite of all his cookbooks. Many chefs of his caliber might turn their nose up at "traditional" American food, without some sort of new twist on it, but Mr. Rosengarten does a great and extensive job of cataloguing all of the vast types of food that we can claim as American. He splits the book into Ethnic, Regional, and Classic America.
I'm not one to judge how well he did all the recipes, but being from Texas, the Tex-Mex, Texas, as well as most of the Southern recipes are pretty good takes of the food I grew up on. I love this book!

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Excellent!

Review by Elysian Lush, 2008-01-06

By far, one of the best cook books I own. It's comprehensive of all aspects of the various cultures in America. This book truly showcases the "melting pot" that we are.

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