China The Beautiful Cookbook: Authentic Recipes from the Culinary Authorities of Beijing, Shanghai, Guangdong and Sichuan

I lost my original copy of this book in a divorce. I've been searching high and low, and finally googled "Chinese cookbook blue". Voila!It is beautiful, full of gorgeous photos of not just the food, but the people and landscapes of China. Cuisine is addressed by region and main ingredient, allowing you to understand the cultural history of a dish and the traditional preparation of it. Recipes are easy to follow, and ingredients are generally familiar to a modern chef.I can't wait to dive in and cook these recipes again.

Even tho this cookbook is "not current", it is timeless in it's receipes and photography

A gotta get... you can't go wrong here. A classic.

This is not your Americanized Chinese Recipe cook book. These are authentic Chinese recipes. Can't wait to try some of them.

a very nice book...it has recipes from all over china...i love this book!

My husband loves this book! Very authentic recipes.

Great book for both culture and cooking.

Borrowed this book from my local library.Pros: The photographs are beautiful, and the non-recipe text is reasonably interesting.Cons:1. The recipes are needlessly elaborate. This is banquet food, not really intended for weeknight home cooking. The Ma Po Tofu recipe calls for beef, and Step 1 calls for you to mince it by hand: I expect the typical cook would use ground beef. More than half the recipes in the "meat" section call for frying the meat in double the volume of oil. Similarly, a recipe for kidneys with sesame-soy paste calls for simmering the cut kidneys multiple times with separate changes of water. (A 2 hr+ soak of the split kidneys in water with a little vinegar and salt suffices.)2. The food photos bear little resemblance to the recipe: the photos almost invariably have decorative elements (e.g., carrots cut into geared wheels, radish roses, etc.) that are not part of the recipe proper. The Ma Po Tofu recipe has a dark red gravy (as expected - this is typically laced with enough chili powder/paste for the typical diner to work up a sweat), but the recipe calls for 2 pickled chilies and 2 tsp hot bean paste with 18 oz tofu and 6 oz beef.3. While each recipe is labeled with the region of China that it ostensibly originated from, I have to question their authenticity at least for the Sichuanese recipes: while this cuisine uses chillies liberally (and Hunanese cuisine even more so) practically all of the "Sichuanese" recipes here seem to be modified restaurant Cantonese, with a sherry/flour/soy base.4. The elaborate recipes would be OK if you were cooking for a large number of guests (or even a large family). However, practically all the recipes (other than the whole roast sucking pig) seem to be made for not more than two people, judging by the quantities of the ingredients.