Rating: 
Summary: Whose America?
Review: The author does have SOME good recipes, but not that many by far. As a rule of thumb, I borrow a cookbook from the local library; if I like it, I buy it. I'm not buying this one. He likes to use a lot of parsimmons, which, hey, how many of us really do? He doesn't give you a warm and fuzzy feeling reading his book, either. He's kinda bossy/preachy, which I did not care for. There are better baking authors out there that I urge you to try. Don't be fooled by the title of this book. He starts off with some history, and then BOOM, he just starts adding in recipes that many of us have never heard of. Don't buy it before trying it out. Also, read the other reviews very closely to see how many of them really tried the recipes before reviewing this book. Good luck on your decision.
Rating: 
Summary: Faking in America
Review: This baking book was disappointing. It represents itself as a survey of 200 years of baking in American kitchens. In the end, the result is a rather ordinary collection of baking and pastry recipes. This collection is supposed to be a collage of 200 years of baking recipes. The book has numerous references to old, out of print recipe books. Then, the author takes these recipes and updates it for the modern kitchen and grocery store. In the bread chapter, for example, all of the dough make-up procedures are virtually identical. This is suspicious, as the sources, hydration percentages, and ingredients for the bread recipes go all over the place. I suspect that the author here has cheated a bit. Also, the procedures do not have very extensive descriptions of how to form the doughs into loaves. Some of the instructions for preparing the various fruits are either incomplete or wrong, as are procedures for cooking sugar into syrups, caramels, etc. I like the fact that the procedures (for the most part) are very detailed, and many of the little steps that are often overlooked are thorough described here. The recipes often have as many as a dozen steps. The beginning of each chapter has some baking tips and hints, although they are far from complete. At the head of each chapter is a list of recipes, which is very convenient when you are looking for something specific. The most valuable part of this book is the bibliography, which lists many historic cookbooks, many of which are still available in facsimile editions. Very valuable, and hard to find, are the dozen or so recipes for doughnuts; these alone are almost worth the price of admission. On the other hand, many chapters are collections of fairly standard recipes that you can find in almost any all purpose cookbook. The one about pies, for example, is very ordinary and commonplace, most of them currently popular ones, and not historic nor heritage in any sense of the word. It is a very decent collection of baking recipes that covers most of the major areas of baking, but it is not as advertised.
Rating: 
Summary: An unusual book sure to inspire you in the kitchen.
Review: This wonderful new book will satisfy your intellectual curiosity as well as your palate. The marvelous introduction, historical notes and recipe openings all serve to inspire and enrich the baking experience. The recipes themselves are fantastic -- straightforward, simple and delicious. I rate this book as the best I have bought in more than 10 years.
Rating:
Summary: This is Classic American Cooking
Review: Whoever wrote the review that said "Whose America?", must not have read the book thoughly. These realy are classic American recipes with interesting backgrounds. The introduction to each chapter is filled with interesting things you probably never knew about American history and most recipes explain how they are tied to American. Recipes include: Peaches and Cream Cobbler, Emily Dickenson's Black Cake, Honeyed Apple Torte, Kentucky Stack Cake, Chocolate Chestnut Torte, Ameretto-Amaretti Cheesecake, Maple Pecan Tart, and Buttercrunch Lemon Bars, to name a few of the recipes. And I have tried a recipe, the Lemon Genoise w/ White Chocolate Buttercream and Raspberries and it was AMAZING!!! I loved it, and so did our guests! I have checked this book out of the library about 4 times and just bought it from Amazon. Tonight I plan on making ladyfingers from the book for tomorrow's tiramasu (the tiramasu recipe is not from this book but from The Barefoot Contessa Family Style, which I also love just as much.)
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