Cooking from Above - Classics

There's a curious thing when it comes to picture cookbooks -- it seems like the vast majority of them use the pictures as little more than window dressing. There are a few that do it right -- Jacques Pepin's Complete Techniques is meticulous about it -- but for the most part, heavily photographed cookbooks underuse their full potential, which is quite the shame, as such books would be excellent for the very young, the dyslexic, and people who simply find large amounts of text daunting. Enter the Cooking from Above series, a French import brought to the US by the British Hamlyn imprint. It's not perfect -- it's really only a first step, and has the slightly sketchy air of inessentiality of a bargain table cookbook -- but it's a great step in the right direction. The first thing to note about these books, before getting into the meat of them, is that they're absolutely beautiful -- it's clear that these books were intended as an artistic tour de force by chefs and food stylists. The mise en place of each recipe is spotless and artfully organized in a manner remniscent of a Japanese kaiseki spread, and everything down to the cookware and even the hotplates used is picked for appearance as much as function. (It's almost surprising that a second-stringer like Hamlyn/Octopus would be publishing this -- the work is stunning enough to be a Phaidon book.) And the spreads are as clear as they are composed -- each ingredient is shown in an unpackaged state, with the captions at the bottom of the page clarifying when necessary. A lot of people lose sight of the value of art and design as a communication mechanism. I can't speak for others who might read or review this book or the others in the series, but as a long-time Mac user, good design of a visual interface is critically important. I wonder if the writers of this series entirely realize what they have on their hands -- they come ever so close to creating the platonic ideal of a fully visual cookbook, but don't quite seem to realize what they've stumbled upon. Buy this book for the art loving foodie or the reading-impaired cook in your family; hopefully this series won't be the last of its kind, but for its few flaws it's still pretty awesome. (And if you can't wait for the English editions, the series is called "Mon Cours de Cuisine" in French; so far there seems to be six to eight volumes, at an approximate price of US$50 each figuring exchange rate and shipping.)