Soup A Way of Life

Kafka, Barbara

ISBN 10: 1579651259 / ISBN 13: 9781579651251

Published by Artisan, New York, NY, 1998

About this Item

NF in a NF DJ. ; Great cookbook that wanders beyond the traditional concepts of soup, including shabu-shabu, etc. ; 8vo. Bookseller Inventory # 32643

Bibliographic Details

Title: Soup A Way of Life

Publisher: Artisan, New York, NY

Publication Date: 1998

Binding: Hardcover

Book Condition: NF

Dust Jacket Condition: NF

Edition: First Edition

About this title

Synopsis:

"Dora, my maternal grandmother," writes Barbara Kafka in her new book, "started the soup tradition that means most to me, which is odd as she was, by all accounts, a bad cook....I hope I am a better cook, and my life has certainly been easier, but I learned from her that a pot of soup is warmth and welcome for family and friends alike."

In this stunningly rich and wide-ranging book, Barbara Kafka gives the food we love perhaps best in the world a new vitality. Though the subject is so familiar to us all, her approach is totally original, just as it was in her award-winning Roasting: A Simple Art and Microwave Gourmet. In a wonderfully diverse collection of nearly three hundred recipes from all over the world--some traditional, some newly minted, many so simple they require no cooking at all, each of them very much a part of our spiritual and emotional lives--she offers up a lifetime worth of pleasure:

icy soups for steamy days (ceviche soup with ginger) and hot soups for cold days (winter duck soup)

rustic potages (great green soup) and elegant consommes (beef madrilene)

simple soups to start (Moroccan tomato) and complex soups that make a meal (beef short ribs in a pot)

fifteen-minute specials (mussels and tomato soup) and those that simmer all day (pot-au-feu)

a magical garlic broth, among other vegetable broths and bases, gives vegetarians hundreds of recipes to enjoy

As always, Barbara's intelligence and talent for innovation have resulted in a vast body of ideas to make your life in the kitchen easy and interesting. Nearly thirty stocks are offered, as well as dozens of ways to use seasonal produce to cook and freeze soup bases for year-round fresh taste. You'll find cooking times for everything from dumplings and piroshki to noodles and pasta, simmering times for every possible cut of meat, and yields and blanching times for dozens of vegetables. There are easy-to-follow charts to answer every cooking question.

And then there's Barbara's "memory pieces." Woven through the recipes, they form a book within a book, one family's personal and culinary history. They're fascinating and warming and enriching on their own. They also remind us why soup is a vital part of our lives. And why Barbara Kafka is a vital part of our cooking experience.

Review:

Barbara Kafka, author of such important and popular books as Roasting: A Simple Art, Party Food, and Microwave Gourmet, doesn't just speak with the voice of authority when she addresses anything that might have to do with food, she speaks with the voice of the woman who invented fire. It's right there, that voice, deep in her soul. And it calls out loud and clear in page after page of what has to be one of her best books ever.

Soup is the blood in Barbara Kafka's veins. "When I am tired and want comfort," she writes, "or when I want to share happiness, or just when I want something full of flavor, my first desire is soup." It is through soup that Kafka embraces the generations of her family, her husband's family, the families of her children's spouses. It is through soup that Kafka embraces the world. "Every culture has its soups and the soups may be said to represent them."

The book begins with a brief overview of technique ("How to Boil Water"), then drops right into a section she calls "Family Soups." Here are the soups Kafka identifies with her grandmother and mother (Chicken Soup and Split-Pea Soup, respectively), her husband (Winter Duck Soup), her own youth (Gazpacho), her adult nature (Veal Soup with Fennel), as well as soups linked to other members of her family. It's as personal as looking through the Kafka family photo album with the author at your side.

From that base, Ms. Kafka moves on to the world of soups, be they of a vegetable nature, or those that rely on various birds or meats or seafoods. She winds down with stocks, noodles, dumplings, sauces, and the like.

It's a masterful production: simple, clear, uncluttered, direct, and thorough. It's a book that opens the senses to the world much as the steam rising off a bowl of lovingly made soup. --Schuyler Ingle