Family Food: A New Approach to Cooking (Penguin Cookery Library)

Having eaten at his restaurant a question entered my mind is 3 michelin stars a high enough rating for heston possibly not! this book is an example of why and its just for home use.

A Kindred Spirit, (9/10 people found this helpful)

Although I do not have children I was drawn to the book by Blumenthal's awesome reputation. The book is very easy to follow he even points out where problems might occur and how to prevent them. Like me he too is dismayed by the way companies are marketing junk food at children and when I read his intro especially about a certain juice company I knew we were indeed kindred spirits. So if you hate juice that is actually just chemicals and teddy bear faced sandwich meat this is the book for you, he draws on his experience with his own children as to how to get children to open up to new tastes and flavours and I think the book is brilliant the recipes taste just as good for an adult!!!

Great Cooking, but is it really for kids? (32/34 people found this helpful)

Firstly, this is a great book - right up there with my all-time favourite cooking books. There are some inspirational recipes in there, and even the apparently more traditional ones are discussed in such thorough detail beforehand that you are forced to think through the whole process of preparation and cooking. It really does make you regard these recipes in a new light. Having just acquired a digital temperature probe, I'm especially keen to try the low-temperature cooking that Blumenthal champions.

The only quibble I have with the book is that for one that claims to be aimed at getting children involved in cooking, I could find very few practical techniques or methods or recipes for achieving this. There's a fair bit of theoretical discussion about the merits of getting children involved in cookery, which I fully endorse. There are also some interesting food tasting experiments, which kids could find fun (and so could adults!) Apart from that, though, the other references to children are almost exclusively about simply urging the reader to get their children involved, about how much Blumenthal's own children enjoy a particular recipe, or how they themselves enjoyed making it. Mr Blumenthal is lucky - I can't imagine my own children tackling those particular recipes (too daunting), and some more specifically children-oriented recipes would have been nice. Blumenthal does explicitly distance himself from "gimmicky...happy parent monthly magazine" style recipes in the foreword, but I can't help feeling that in trying to avoid that particular trap he's swung the pendulum too far the other way.

Family Food: A New Approach to Cooking (29/32 people found this helpful)

I have never before read a cookery book that has excited me in this way. This book is revolutionary and worthy of it's many awards. I have heard of the author and his restaurnt The Fat Duck before and thought that the dishes would be difficult to follow and indeed they were the exact opposite! I have used the recipes with my two daughters age 4 and 16 and we have all enjoyed the experience. Mr Blumenthal manages to not only create delicious food but recipes that let you understand and respect the ingredients. My husband and i have used the recipes successfully for diner parties and also with the children for our midweek pasta nights. Well done Mr Blumenthal and Thank you. I cannot recommend this book highly enough!!!

Here Comes the Science Bit... (47/61 people found this helpful)

Awarded his third Michelin star a scant month before Family Food came out in paperback can't be bad publicity for Heston Blumenthal. The problem this book might have is explaining itself: who it is for and what is it for?

Perhaps a quarter of the book is an exposition of an attitude towards children and food. The skills they need. Why their involvement is helpful. How a child's enthusiasm is to be encouraged. How their attitude is to be shaped. That last point applies to parents too.

It's interesting stuff, but it's by no means a primer on the subject. There are no guidelines on safety and supervision. At what age should a child be allowed to pour hot water from a kettle or attempt to chop an onion? Perhaps more seriously lacking are guidelines around hygiene for handling food. There's a fairly eyebrow raising point about touching eggs, but much is taken for granted.

The remainder of the book uses a comparatively gentle range of recipes to illustrate the Blumenthal food aesthetic. The style and content is much toned-down from his column in the Guardian. No recipes for toothpaste and sparkling mouthwash or snail porridge. Instead what largely remain are some good, but unsurprising, template recipes.

Critically, many of these seem hardly suitable for everyday cooking. The fresh pasta for example requires 10 egg yolks. Yet there are also recipes of undisguised brilliance and simplicity: the pear with star anise is pure revelation.

There remains a portion of the book which is dedicated to the low temperature cookery. The technique, like all of Blumenthal's recipes, is based on scientific principles. It does require specialist equipment (unless you already happen to own a digital temperature probe) and a certain experimental willingness.

I was left wondering if the temperature being used were high enough to kill any bacteria on the product and the instructions for measuring the internal temperature of the food are much too vague. This has often been a frustration with Blumenthal's recipes. He encourages novel approaches without giving quite enough detail to feel comfortable about following them.

Overall though, it's an interesting and encouraging book. There are snippets of useful information (how calcium in tap water turns your green beans dull) although not as many of these as I was hoping for. The same might be said for the suggested food experiments.

However, it's really only tangentially about children and family food. It would perhaps have been a better book with the children left in the garden to play.

Family Food: A New Approach to Cooking (Penguin Cookery Library)

Heston Blumenthal

Reader Reviews:

Classical cookery? (0/1 people found this helpful)

A Kindred Spirit, (9/10 people found this helpful)

Great Cooking, but is it really for kids? (32/34 people found this helpful)

Family Food: A New Approach to Cooking (29/32 people found this helpful)

Here Comes the Science Bit... (47/61 people found this helpful)

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