If you’ve never read any of James Beard’s books, you need to find one and crack it open. Right now I’m going through one of his classics, the Theory and Practice of Good Cooking. The reason Beard’s books blow away so many of those glossy, flashy cook books on the market today is because of all the thought that he put into writing and organizing his articles. After an introductory chapter on tools and equipment, the next seven chapters in this book are each based on a cooking method, such as boiling, roasting, braising, etc. The chapter begins with a thorough explanation of how the method words and what foods it can be used for, and this helps to understand how the recipes that follow work, so you don’ just follow a set of procedures and not know what’s going on. But it’s all very readable, with concise explanations and recipes, and stories and anecdotes, so it’s definitely not like reading a dry textbook. You can just pick something, like roasting a pork loin, read a short article and a recipe, and then cook it, and you’ll probably make something good because you’ll understand what you’re doing.

My problem with so many cook books – and I worked at a bookstore for a while so I’m familiar with this – is that they’re full of colorful photos, celebrity authors, and TV show tie-ins, but don’t have much substance. All those flashy photos might impress someone or make them hungry, but I doubt they help them learn to cook or understand the recipe. It shouldn’t be hard to learn to cook, if you learn a bit of the fundamentals – like what happens when you brown meat – rather than just one dish at a time. Because even if you don’t like to cook, ultimately you’d be better off being able to make dinner in less than 30 minutes anytime by using simple techniques that you’ve learned, rather than busting out one of those expensive cookbooks and worrying about spilling something on the flashy pictures.

This is my first post. For my next few posts I’ll show some of the easy things I’m learning from reading Beard, as examples of why you should read him too.

On Amazon: James Beard’s Theory and Practice Of Good Cooking, Beard on Food