Rating: 
Summary: It was love at first sight...
Review: The book is filled with delightful illustrations, photographs, and the sort of Jewish history I hungered for. But speaking of hungry, if you plan on doing more than just reading this book you may be disapointed, as I was. The recipes were too basic. Once I followed through with them, I realized that Ms. Roden had to be leaving fairly important things out. She states that she chose the versions of the recipes that she found most appealing, but I believe her choices in fact reflect her desire not to frighten more simple and less experienced chefs with too many instructions or ingredients. But it is not helpful to leave out basic instructions, ie: in the "Pot Roast" recipe she fails to instruct the reader to brown the meat before adding the water. For Ashkenazi recipes there are many more helpful books on the market. For myself, I'm still searching for a good Sephardi cooking resource. In the end, I'm not sorry I bought the book, while it is not a great cookbook, it is a beautiful treasure of a book and an outstanding tribute to our culture.
Rating: 
Summary: Finally: a cookbook from the Sephardi perspective!
Review: The greatness of this Jewish cookbook lies not only in its stellar recipes but in its viewpoint. Claudia Roden grew up in Cairo, and her definition of Jewish home cooking is definitely of the Middle Eastern variety than the usual European. She does not ignore European Jewish cooking; she devotes some 100 pages to it. But the bulk of the book is Middle Eastern and Northern African Jewish food. While the recipes are / taste somewhat exotic, I have found them very easy to adapt to whatever I am cooking at the moment. I often fuse recipes from this book with recipes from other cookbooks-always with great success. This is not only a great book of recipes, but it is an inspiration as well. Happy Cooking!
Rating:
Summary: I prefer Molly Goldberg
Review: The historical material is very interesting, but for practical, down-to-earth recipes I prefer The Molly Goldberg Jewish Cookbook.
Rating:
Summary: It was love at first sight...
Review: This ambitious book combines superb, easy to prepare Jewish recipes with fascinating historical and cultural blurbs on everything from NYC deli's to the history of Moroccan Jews. Amazingly, the book succeeds on both these levels. The sepia-toned photographs and drawings that decorate the book magnificently illustrate the historical and cultural asides. However, if you're expecting photographs of the food itself, you're in for disappointment. The individual recipes don't come with photographs showing the final dish. A great gift idea for yourself or any other cooks you might know.
Rating:
Summary: Great Recipes + Fascinating Cultural and Historical Facts
Review: This ambitious book combines superb, easy to prepare Jewish recipes with fascinating historical and cultural blurbs on everything from NYC deli's to the history of Moroccan Jews. Amazingly, the book succeeds on both these levels. The sepia-toned photographs and drawings that decorate the book magnificently illustrate the historical and cultural asides. However, if you're expecting photographs of the food itself, you're in for disappointment. The individual recipes don't come with photographs showing the final dish. A great gift idea for yourself or any other cooks you might know.
Rating:
Summary: Jewish multiculturalism at its tastiest!
Review: This astonishing book brings together the images and traditions, as well as the recipes, of Jewish communities all over the world. It would be worth owning if there were no recipes, just for the little-known traditions of Jews in dozens of locations.
But the recipes are wonderful. I've tried several, and they are well-written and easy to follow. Unlike most Mediterranean or Middle Eastern cookbooks, you don't have to figure out substitutions to ensure that dishes are kosher.
In short, if you want to know about Jews around the world -- BUY THIS BOOK! If you want to cook and eat wonderful kosher food -- BUY THIS BOOK!
Rating:
Summary: Finally: a cookbook from the Sephardi perspective!
Review: This is a great Middle Eastern and Central Asian cookbook. It's not such a great Ashkenazi cookbook -- there are shelves full of better, more complete, and more varied Ashkenazi cookbooks out there -- but it does make a nod in that direction, which is rather more than a lot of Ashkenazi books do towards Asian cooking. As an Asian cookbook, it's wonderful. The recipes are plentiful and varied. There is indeed more to Sephardic cooking than eggplant. Each recipe comes with twiddles and variations, which are liberating. If you don't have quite enough of an ingredient, it's helpful to have suggestions for adjusting the dish. The quantities are reasonable, and listed in several different systems (i.e. metric/imperial, weight/volume), and the cooking techniques are pretty simple and thoroughly explained. One should be aware, however, that many of the dishes date from an era when women stayed home and had all day to make a single dish. Some things, in particular the Salonika Meat Pies and some of the pastry sweets, take far longer to make than one would anticipate. For me, this book's two greatest strengths are its asides and its scope. It's great to see essays on some of the remoter Jewish communities. The Bukharans, the Bene Israel of India, and the Jews of Caucasian Georgia just don't get the press in the United States that the Ashkenazi and Sephardi communities do. There is even a wonderful story on the lost Kaifeng community in China. The traditional foods of these cultures (except the Kaifeng and the Ethiopian Jews) are well represented, making this very much a world cookbook. After I served a dessert from this book (the quince compote) to my cousin, we started talking, and we discovered that we had both independently discovered and enjoyed it. It strikes me that such a varied book as this could be a useful tool for reaching across cultures and forming diverse friendships. The quince compote is a pretty good place to start.
Rating: 
Summary: Exotic Comfort Food
Review: This is a great Middle Eastern and Central Asian cookbook. It's not such a great Ashkenazi cookbook -- there are shelves full of better, more complete, and more varied Ashkenazi cookbooks out there -- but it does make a nod in that direction, which is rather more than a lot of Ashkenazi books do towards Asian cooking. As an Asian cookbook, it's wonderful. The recipes are plentiful and varied. There is indeed more to Sephardic cooking than eggplant. Each recipe comes with twiddles and variations, which are liberating. If you don't have quite enough of an ingredient, it's helpful to have suggestions for adjusting the dish. The quantities are reasonable, and listed in several different systems (i.e. metric/imperial, weight/volume), and the cooking techniques are pretty simple and thoroughly explained. One should be aware, however, that many of the dishes date from an era when women stayed home and had all day to make a single dish. Some things, in particular the Salonika Meat Pies and some of the pastry sweets, take far longer to make than one would anticipate. For me, this book's two greatest strengths are its asides and its scope. It's great to see essays on some of the remoter Jewish communities. The Bukharans, the Bene Israel of India, and the Jews of Caucasian Georgia just don't get the press in the United States that the Ashkenazi and Sephardi communities do. There is even a wonderful story on the lost Kaifeng community in China. The traditional foods of these cultures (except the Kaifeng and the Ethiopian Jews) are well represented, making this very much a world cookbook. After I served a dessert from this book (the quince compote) to my cousin, we started talking, and we discovered that we had both independently discovered and enjoyed it. It strikes me that such a varied book as this could be a useful tool for reaching across cultures and forming diverse friendships. The quince compote is a pretty good place to start.
Rating:
Summary: The ONLY cookbook you'll ever need. Toss all others out!!!
Review: This is an absolutely remarkable book. Not only are there numerous recipies, but this book is rich with information the most religious Jew may not have even known. A friend showed this to me in the library, and the more I browsed through it, the more I wanted to own it. There is a recipie from every continent, pictures, and humorous biographical stories, too. You may as well toss all your previous cookbooks out, and gain shelf space you've been dying for. This is the only book you'll ever need. Trust me, my shayna ponim doesn't lie.
Rating:
Summary: The Book of Jewish Food
Review: This is an extraordinary book, particularly the portion focusing on Sephardic food and customs. Reading it, I felt that the author was best friends with my mother-in-law in Istanbul.
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