Bones: Recipes, History, and Lore by
Jennifer Mclagan
Wonderful & Just A Little Unusual
Theres a lot more going on in Bones than the glorification of beef marrow.
True, you will want to serve roasted marrow bones after even a casual
reading. Jennifer McLagan, chef, food stylist, food writer, and now
cookbook author says this is where it all began for her, this journey that
has become a singular determination to rehabilitate bones in the family
kitchen: Scooping out the soft, warm marrow and spreading it on crisp
toast is a sensual delight. A touch of salt, and all is right with the world.
Bones is about meat on the bone, plain and simple. Beef or veal, lamb,
game, poultry, fish--it matters not. If the meat is on the bone as it enters
the cooking process, be that roasting, braising, steaming, baking, or
grilling, it has every chance of being far superior to meat divorced of the
skeleton. Think how boring skinless, boneless chicken breasts can be. But
McLagans underlying theme is about taking time to treat a product like
meat with the respect it deserves. If you demand that it morphs into some
sort of time-and-labor-saving protein package you end up with chicken

fingers, not food. If it is about anything, Bones is about good food, and
good food takes time. And time is the most precious ingredient any cook
can add to the broth. The time it takes isnt a burden, its where the cook
truly learns and grows and matures. McLagan divides Bones into
sections devoted to Beef and Veal, Pork, Lamb, Poultry, Fish, and Game.
Each section begins with a precise description of the basic animal from the
skeleton on out before moving on to stocks, concentrated stocks, and
consommés. As for recipe enticements youll find Beer-Glazed Beef Ribs,
Osso Buco with Fennel and Blood Orange Sauce, Spicy Korean Pork
Soup, Roast Leg of Pork with Crackling, Olive-Crusted Lamb Racks, Lamb
Shanks in Pomegranate Sauce, Poached Chicken with Seasonal
Vegetables, Grilled Quail with Sage Butter, Coconut Curry Chicken,
Sardines on Toast, Cantonese-style Steamed Fish, and Herb-Roasted
Rabbit (one of four rabbit recipes!). While the novice cook should not
shy away from Bones, a firm foundation in basic western cooking
technique is a plus. Theres a lot of learning available between these two
covers. Some of it is about meat and bones, some about cooking and
serving, and some is about an attitude to bring to the kitchen: If you take a
little time the rewards will be far superior to any shortcuts along the way.
All of which makes Jennifer McLagan something of a revolutionary in our
midst. --Schuyler Ingle
Personal Review: Bones: Recipes, History, and Lore by Jennifer
Mclagan
`Bones' by Australian chef and culinary writer, Jennifer McLagen, currently
of Toronto, Canada is a major contribution to our understanding of so
many things which are good about food, and which we have forgotten, or
tend to ignore. There is a conventional wisdom, aphoristic expressions of
which are sprinkled liberally about the margins of this work, which
endorses the value of bones and the meat which lies closest to same. And
yet, my mother, in the name of modern culinary frugality, and in spite of
growing up in a Pennsylvania Dutch household that should have known
better, constantly harangues me on not buying meat with embedded
bones. This leads to all sorts of cases where I'm entreated to give up the
joys of a leg of lamb on the bone, not to mention lamb shanks or `osso
buco'.
The pretext is that pound for pound, the boneless meat is a better value for
the money. This monotone doctrine is probably wrong much of the time
even if one did a careful pound of protein per dollar analysis of the two
products, but that misses the point. This book is one long argument for the
value added obtained from bones with our meat.
One thing I wish to stress is that one should not assume this book is a long
essay or memoir in the style of Peter Kaminsky's `Pig Perfect'. The
subtitle, `Recipes, History, & Lore' is a quite accurate statement of the
distribution of content between recipes and `other stuff'. In fact, one can
easily acquire this book as a general cookbook on how to cook animal
protein, as it covers protein on the hoof, on the wing, and on (and in) the

water. Virtually the only kind of protein it does not cover are those beasties
such as the crustaceans and mollusks who wear their stiffening body parts
on the outside.
Specifically, the author has chapters on:
Beef and Veal, including Bison
Pork
Lamb
Poultry, including game birds
Fish, round and flat
Game, primarily venison and related meat on the hoof
Boneologue, with bone derived desserts, if you can believe it.
The two primary values derived from bone are gelatin and marrow. The
first is one of those great universal ingredients, almost as valuable as lard
or sugar, in the cooking of France. In fact, if one were to look for those
things that most distinguish French cuisine from all others, it would
probably include the use of gelatin in both stocks, desserts, and aspics
used to keep food fresh on the buffet table. In comparison, marrow is
almost a footnote, roughly similar to bottarga as an esoteric ingredient.
With the importance of bony gelatin in stocks, it is no surprise that virtually
every chapter but the last begins with a recipe for the appropriate stock.
So, this book becomes also a great reference for making meat and fish
stocks.
It is no surprise that in a book on animal bones, there will be diagrams of
the skeletons of each type of animal. This may be one of my few
complaints about the book, in that for their relative importance, they are
relatively small and poorly annotated. I can get much more by looking up
the butchering diagrams in my Larousse Gastronomique. Similarly, I thing
much of the discussion would have been much more illuminating if pictures
of the various types of cuts were on display. This would have been much
more valuable than the artsy black and white pics of cleaned bones and
color pics of dishes, which I rarely look at in a cookbook anyway. But let us
not let this distract you from a truly rich and readable cookbook.
As all recipes deal with bony cuts, I am especially pleased that so many of
the recipes are braises. There are so many that Ms. McLagan makes
special mention of the technique she learned from Thomas Keller's `The
French Laundry Cookbook' of laying a circle of parchment paper on top of
the braising meat and liquid. As Sara Moulton found out when she learned
this technique from Jacques Pepin, this is not a personal `trick' dreamt up
by some modern chef, it is actually a well-established practice in the
French restaurant kitchen.
This is just one example of the great care Ms. McLagan applies to her
recipe writing. Every recipe has its little hints and suggestions and

warnings to prevent an inadvertent drying out. She is especially good on
the proper technique of using the instant read or permenantly installed
thermometer. This point alone makes the book important for amateur
cooks.
The selection of recipes is just the right mix of familiar and unusual dishes.
If you happen to own a substantial library of cookbooks, there is more than
enough here to interest you. The recipes for game and the notes on
cooking Bison and Beefalo alone are worth the price of admission.
For an average cookbook price, you get lots of great recipes for animal
protein plus lots of entertaining wit and wisdom on making the most of the
bones before the dog gets a hold of them.
For More 5 Star Customer Reviews and Lowest Price:
Bones: Recipes, History, and Lore by Jennifer Mclagan 5 Star Customer Reviews and
Lowest Price!