Saveur: The New Classics Cookbook—More Than 1,000 of the World’s Best Recipes for Today’s Kitchen

The editors of food magazine Saveur deliver a cookbook cum encyclopedia, which offers recipes and excursions into food cultures worldwide. The aim is to redefine the concept of “classics” beyond the familiar U.S. and European standards and add dishes from other regions to the canon. “Classic recipes are maps, biographies, history lessons on a plate,” the introduction states. The more than 1,000 recipes in this comprehensive volume are organized into easy-to-follow chapters that range from appetizers to desserts and cocktails. Some dishes are readily prepared, needing only a little preparation time. Into this category fall homey fare like veal piccata, Creole-style fried fish, corn dogs, and Mexican rice. For the most part, though, this is a volume for ambitious home cooks—those willing to put in the effort required to master several labor-intensive steps and long ingredient lists. Examples include bacheofe, an Alsatian meat and vegetable stew (23 ingredients); a black bean burger with salsa fresca and avocado crema; and a Tunisian tuna sandwich. Helpful indexes for searching recipes by ingredient and origin supplement the table of contents. American supermarket staples will suffice for most of these recipes, and the editors offer tips for hunting down ingredients that may be harder to find. The book is illustrated with two inserts of color photos, which will be welcomed by fans of Saveur magazine[em]. (Nov.) [/em]