Taste: One Palates Journey Through
the Worlds Greatest Dishes by
Television Food Network
Not Wide, But Wonderfully Deep
Fans of David Rosengarten will be thrilled with the publication of Taste,
not so much a companion volume to his popular Food Network show as a
distillation of all the man holds dear. It is a remarkable, lush effort,
beautifully illustrated with rich color pictures of exotic and home-grown
foods. How many food-addled souls out there take the time, like
Rosengarten, to sit down and catalog all of the personal favorite dishes
from around the world, and then explain why the dish is so delicious, and
exactly what makes it special? And oh, by the way, heres how to cook it!
Rosengarten begins his culinary adventure with a chapter entitled My
Favorite Light Appetizers. Here is bruschetta, remarkable Chinese
appetizers, gazpacho, Thai salads, and oysters and caviar. In this and
every chapter is everything you need to know in order to buy and prepare
these foods; ideas on how to serve them; order them in a restaurant;
judge them for quality and seasonality; and the right wines to accompany

each dish. Other My Favorite chapters include in-between dishes (French
onion soup; quiche), main courses (Szechwan Shrimp with Chili and
Garlic Sauce; moussaka), and desserts (Tarte Tatin; chocolate-chip
cookies). A wealth of cooking instruction is here to make your life easier
too. Take Gumbo--Rosengarten details three ways in which to thicken the
texture, by traditional roux, by okra, and by filé powder. Next comes a
delightful recipe for Shrimp and Andouille Gumbo, and a list of
recommended beers. David Rosengarten brings remarkably good tastes
into the home kitchen--anyone studying this book will be able to hold court
with the best of them, Martha Stewart included. --Schuyler Ingle
Personal Review: Taste: One Palates Journey Through the
Worlds Greatest Dishes by Television Food Network
David Rosengarten's FoodTV show, Taste, beautifully illustrated how good
the food network *used* to be. Instead of trying to cover several dishes
during his half hour allotment, Rosengarten focused on one item in
particular -- and then told you everything about it. He showed what could
go wrong with, say, a reuben sandwich or creme brulee, and then
demonstrated how to do it right. You knew what his standards were and
how to achieve them. Oh -- and he did it all with humor.
I think his book, Taste, came out at about the same time. It has the same
premise: individual dishes in great depth, rather than a whole cuisine or a
collection of random beef (or whatever) recipes. So you get five or more
pages about paella or BBQ ribs or the "ordinary" fruit salad. The result is
that you learn EVERYTHING about that one subject: his criteria for quality,
the variation in methods (for example, Rosengarten compares the
difference in gumbo when the dish is thickened with roux, okra, and filé
powder), and sometimes its history.
It's always informative, and I have NEVER had a recipe failure. It isn't
always the simplest choice, but he explains why you should bother with the
extra effort. (His explanation of charcoute garnie causes me to pick a
Parisian restaurant that specialized in it, so I could understand exactly why
he made such a big deal about it. I'm spoiled for life, now, because I can't
find the right kind of saurkraut to make it myself.)
The result is that I don't flip through Taste when I'm looking for an "I'm in
the mood for Italian" dinner. It does mean that, when we're thinking about
making crab cakes, we're guaranteed to say, "Does Rosengarten have a
recipe? Let's see what he does."
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