Oriental flavour

Press, 28 November 1977, Page 12

Oriental flavour

The Step-by-Step Chinese Cookbook. By Georges Spunt. Jonathan Cape. 400 pp- Index. $17.90. Art of Oriental Cooking. By Mrs Leong Yee Soo. Andre Deutsch. 200 pp. Index. $16.70. (Reviewed by Loma Buchanan) “Planning a meal is an emotional adventure, based primarily on individual tastes and hopefully tempered with logic. What the mystique of Chinese cooking boils down to is the simple application of a common-sense culinarv factor: variety. The Chinese achieve variety by dividing a meal into five or more distinct flavours. These usually are: salty, sweet, sour, hot, and bitter.” So Georges Spunt sums up 40 vears of experience with Chinese cooking, much of it in China. He has written a book which is a model of clarity as •well as a mine of information, variety, and sensible advice — almost a model cook-book. Although it never becomes tedious, “Step-by-Step” is remarkable for its sheer size and the diversity of its material. This is a Chinese cook-book, for instance, which makes no mention of rice until the reader is halfway through. For New Zealanders accustomed to what generally passes for Chinese cooking in this country — the “stir, fry, toss” method — Mr Spunt adds whole new dimensions to the cook’s art. He begins by explaining eight different Chinese methods of cooking. Stir-fry-toss is the first. The others, each with special Chinese techniques, are: braising, red-stewing, boil-

ing and clear-simmering, steaming, shallow-frying and deep-frying, oven-bar-becuing and smoke-cook-ing, hot pot cooking. A large variety of recipes are given for each system, beginning with simple, basic dishes and working up to much more elaborate variations. A full explanation is still provided with each recipe so that it is not necessary to refer back to find the earlier basic steps. But this is much more than a recipe book. Each vegetable or condiment used is fully described.

familiarity with Western cooking methods the author is able to explain unusual terms and techniques in a manner which can be readily understood. By the end of the book the reader will be able to produce the most elaborate Chinese meals, using all eight cooking techniques with aplomb. Illustrations are limited to a handful of drawings helpful for the identification of unusual utensils or ingredients. Otherwise, this is a workbook for an adventurous kitchen, not a book simply to be admired. “Art of Oriental Cooking” is quite a different dish. Here glossy, colour illustrations give an illusion of a first-class cooking book, but the recipes involve strange ingredients which are either unobtainable or simply unknown ‘in New Zealand. The book was published appears to have been directed at a Westernised directed at qa Westernised Chinese audience for, in spite of its title, a large section is devoted to thoroughly Western cakes. Even these recipes leave something to be desired and there are shades of a Chinese Mrs Beeton in a recipe for Rose Marie Cake which begins “20 egg yolks.” “Art of Oriental cooking” is a coffee table book which might yield a dozen useful dishes for a New Zealand household. “Step-by-Step'’ is a text for those who love cooking for its own sake and who want to know what to do, and why to do it, when coming to grips with the whole variety of foods and techniques offered by another culture.