Intuitive Cooking: From the School of Natural Cookery

by Joanne Saltzman

Instead of limiting the cook to exacting recipes, Joanne Saltzman, founder and director of The School of Natural cookery in Boulder, Co., explains the underlying principles of flavor and texture in sixty different vegetables, a dozen grain dishes, and twelve plant-based proteins - and unlocks the mystery of what makes for delicious food combining. This simple but powerful primer on how various cooking and preparation methods transform foods enables cooks to utilize ingredients they already have on hand and create unique, perfectly balanced, impeccably seasoned dishes. More than 200 recipe "sketches" demonstrate how to cook and flavor without precise measuring and complicated instructions. These sketches range from simple winter squash to an elegant spinach-leek soup, and will encourage and reward any cook's creative and innovative spirit.

Genres: Cooking

215 pages, Paperback

First published August 30, 2006

Reviews

[Hestia Cestina · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is very important to me. It is the work of a hippie, over-intellectualising the process of home cooking, in order to feel pleasure in reconnecting to the sensory experience of cooking and eating. That's who I am, and that's what I need to do, and this works for me and makes me feel good. I hope everyone can find books that do the same for them.

[Andrea James · Rating 2 out of 5]

As one of the other reviewers on Goodreads mentioned, the writing is somewhat odd. I agree with that reviewer and I really struggled to get through the book. The book's cover caused concern - the flowery cursive font and the colour hinted that there might be some non-scientific tendencies - as I tend to prefer straight-talking books.

This is such a shame because I like the concept of viewing cooking as a language. I think one can draw instructive parallels between cooking and music/art/language. But sadly I was not on the same wavelength of comunication as the author. I suspect I probably agree with her on how to navigate cooking and I've been writing my perspectives of how different dishes are connected.

I'd like to improve the way I teach people to see a pantry/fridge with a cook's eyes. I was hoping that I could pick up some ideas from this book but the gulf in our communication styles is too big for me to understand the book properly. This is an extra shame because I'm trying to expand the way I communicate too.

[Sharil · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just finished a cooking class that was structured by the School of Natural Cookery. Loved the class and all of the food! I've never liked following recipies and this book it about this process of improv.