In years past, a copy of “The Joy of Cooking” or some other universally beloved grease-stained tome resided in practically every kitchen in America. Lately, though, the appetite for those weighty comprehensive volumes appears to have waned.
This trend is not lost on Christopher Kimball, who, seven years ago, founded Milk Street, the multimedia empire dedicated to helping American cooks expand their nightly meal repertoire with global flavors and techniques.
In the introduction to Milk Street’s latest cookbook, Kimball notes how ancestral recipes have been largely replaced by whims of the current zeitgeist. And trying to produce a single handy volume that appeals to today’s diverse and internet-savvy audience poses challenges far more complex than the ones Fannie Farmer and Irma Rombauer encountered when the grocery landscape was more homogeneous. But Kimball and his well-traveled team have risen to the occasion.
As with their previous volumes, the recipes in “Milk Street 365: The All-Purpose Cookbook for Every Day of the Year” (Voracious, $45) are easy to follow and take time, money and convenience into account. They use time-saving tools such as Instant Pots and sheet pans, and incorporate no-longer specialty ingredients such as gochujang and pomegranate molasses.
Descriptions for Somali Chicken Soup, Vietnamese Shaking Beef, and Mexican Shrimp in Garlic Sauce provide tidbits of cultural context while sparing us superfluous personal anecdotes and more history than we want to know. Rather, the writers and recipe developers focus on what they do best: arming us with knowledge to help us become better and more efficient cooks every day of the year — whether it’s the right pork cut for maximum tenderness or a new secret to fluffy scrambled eggs.
At 629 pages, “Milk Street 365″ gives your arms a bit of a workout en route to the kitchen. But once you put this guide to work, you’ll likely find your mental load lifting as making dinner becomes easier and more rewarding than ever.
Susan Puckett is a cookbook author and former food editor of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Follow her at susanpuckett.com.
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