The Cooks Canon
101 Classic Recipes Everyone Should Know
By Raymond Sokolov

     The Cooks Canon is a wonderfully varied collection of recipes from France, Germany, India, China, Italy, Morocco, Thailand and more. Included with each recipe is a short history about the dish as well as witty and entertaining descriptions of special or unusual ingredients and cooking procedures.

     The author starts with the American classic apple pie, perhaps because the book is set up in alphabetical order. Later, there is a recipe for coq au vin, a wonderful chicken stew. Further along is Hong Kong Shrimp-only five simple ingredients in this stir fry, but it sounded heavenly. Another flip of the pages revealed Ropa Vieja or Cuban Beef Casserole-flank steak, onions, chilies, peppers and garlic. How could this recipe go wrong? The list continues and most recipes sound very appealing,

     This book would make a lovely gift foe an aspiring cooks who wanted to broaden their repertoire. Not only would the book be useful for the recipes but the history section were extremely readable and enjoyable.