- Hardcover: 208 pages
- Publisher: Clarkson Potter; 1 edition (May 26 1998)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0609601024
- ISBN-13: 978-0609601020
- Product Dimensions: 23.1 x 19.3 x 2.8 cm
- Shipping Weight: 816 g
- Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
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Amazon Bestsellers Rank:
#442,704 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #61 in Books > Cooking, Food & Wine > Cooking by Ingredient > Rice & Grains
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Amazon
There's something of a warning for all readers in this book: blend too well with the American melting pot and you may lose the way things tasted when you were a child. Such was almost the case with Ellen Blonder and Annabel Low, who grew up together in Chinese families in California.
"For all the time we spent helping in the kitchen while we were growing up," Blonder writes, "we missed the next step of mastering the recipes on our own; we lost our connection to the old ways of cooking. We can teach our daughters how to deal with corporations, but we couldn't pass down the simplest technique for dealing with taro root."
While compiling a collection of favorite family recipes meant as a wedding gift, Blonder and Low realized there was a deep hole in their heritage: when push came to shove, they really didn't know how their parents had prepared a lot of their favorite foods. Fortunately for their families and any other families that open and use this book, their rediscovery developed into a gem of a book.
Blonder's illustrations alone are worth the price of the book. The reminiscences open up a chapter of American immigrant history too often hidden, and the recipes and careful instructions for assembling the dishes bring the special foods of a particular village in China to anyone's table.
There may well be better Chinese cookbooks on the market, but Every Grain of Rice is special for the implied invitation to sit down and eat with the two authors, their families, and all their ancestors stretching back in time to the place where the recipes were originally developed. Invitations like that don't show up every day. The experience may turn readers back to their own favorite foods, and their own heritage, and encourage them to save what they can while the information is still available. That, in and of itself, is a very special sauce to add to any dish. --Schuyler Ingle
From Publishers Weekly
Low and Blonder, aunt and niece born within 16 days of each other, offer glimpses of their Chinese-American childhood in California in this utterly charming and strikingly illustrated (by Blonder) cookbook. Recipes are for home-style foods but are sometimes complex, like the one for Savory Jeng, a glutinous rice mixture cooked in carefully folded bamboo leaves. Both Green Loofah Squash with Prawns and Long Beans with Ground Pork in Lettuce Packets make use of more exotic vegetables. Chinese New Year's Cake with mashed yams and brown sugar is described as being similar to "a soft caramel." More familiar Chinese-American favorites like Fried Rice and Vegetarian Chow Mein are not neglected either. Even stronger than the recipes are the anecdotes provided by both authors, which are personal without being too sentimental: Low remembers her imposing and impressive father, Low Hop Joe, proprietor of the Hong Kong Cafe in Sacramento, and Blonder reflects on the Chinese tradition of never accepting a compliment. This book is both appetizing and engaging.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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Customer Reviews
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Most helpful customer reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
This book rocks!,
By WhatTheDormouseSaid (everywhere) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Every Grain of Rice: A Taste of Our Chinese Childhood in America (Hardcover)
Great little stories but the REAL gems are the recipes. Not only do they work, they also deliver in the flavor department!I've been looking for a good char sui pork recipe since I was a teen. I've tried a bunch and I've been burned by them all, except the recipe in this book. Fabulous (and it freezes well too!) Great book.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Getting in touch with my roots,
By "cwyc_1" (Ottawa, Ontario Canada) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Every Grain of Rice: A Taste of Our Chinese Childhood in America (Hardcover)
After having moved away from home for a number of years, I started to realize and appreciate the important role of food to Chinese culture, family and traditions. Much to my chagrin, I had learned very little about the Chinese family kitchen while growing up. While I was nourished by the comfort foods my mother and aunts had made for us, I had very little knowledge of the mechanics of producing these offerings of love.Blonder and Low have done an impressive job of bringing back to the memories of my childhood, where food plays such a central role in Chinese family life. I have tried many of the recipes in this book and most of them have turned out just the way I recall my mother making them. And most of all, the stories and anecdotes demonstrate how Every Grain of Rice inextricably links culture and food to Chinese traditions. The authors recall momentous occasions such as Chinese New Year and donning their "best" clothes; the excitement of receiving little red "luy see". This book is all about comfort foods. It's about home cooking in the Chinese family. You will rarely find these dishes in a restaurant. My cousin was looking through this book and disdainfully noted how the recipes were so "chop suey". I don't know if his description is correct, but you will rarely find these dishes in a restaurant. Perhaps he was comparing it to the sometimes over-complicated and sophisticated, "gourment-style" Chinese cookbooks. It is certainly not that. It is purely about childhood memories of growing up Chinese in North America.
4.0 out of 5 stars
Impress Your Friends,
By
This review is from: Every Grain of Rice: A Taste of Our Chinese Childhood in America (Hardcover)
As the Caucasian parent of children adopted from Asia, I'm always interested in cookbooks that offer a healthy dose of cultural ed along with the recipes. This one does both things beautifully -- I have enjoyed the stories and the pictures very much. I have also made dozens of the included recipes, always with excellent results. (Living in an urban center with easy access to Chinese ingredients helps, but the difficulty level of many of these dishes is not as high as with some other Asian cookbooks I own, and should not be too scary even for beginning cooks.)The ultimate endorsement has to come from Chinese-American friends at the weekend school I attend with one of my kids. After having some of them over for a Lunar New Year party and serving the soy sauce chicken, steamed whole fish, and several other dishes from the book, I have gained a small reputation at the school as "that white woman who can cook Chinese food." The following year I made the steamed New Year's Cake (nian gao, in Mandarin) and took it to weekend school. Two of the faculty actually asked me for the recipe. I vow that one day soon I'm going to get the bamboo leaves out of my freezer, gird my loins, and cook up a batch of those time-consuming Jeng. Authors Ellen and Annabel have convinced me that the results might just be worth the effort.
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