The Best of Russian Cooking

The book is unique in its genre. It is not just a compilation of recipes, many of which are truly unique and most of them really genuine. It also provides a thourough overview of the way Russians eat, treat their guests and cook. It is perfectly adopted to the undersyanding of non-native Russian readers but a bit outdated since the last revision by the author dates of early sixites. Enjoyable and very useful reading for all food lovers.

I bought this book because I wanted to introduce my husband to something authentic and I wanted to do it right. The Introduction is very cute, it describes some of the Russian habits in quite exact details which made me convinced that the author knows what she is talking about. There are also 15 chapters that contain recipes by categories from appetizers to desserts, mostly for everyday cooking. But I give this book 4 stars because of several reasons. First, you have to have at least basic culinary skills. The book does not have any illustration, so you have to figured out by yourself how to wrap cabbage leaves for Golubtsi or how to wrap Pelmeni. Second, these recipes were created to use the ingredients bought at local market at the same day they were harvested or produced. There are not much spices being used and when using the store-bought ingredients you might find some of these dishes too plain or bland. But using organic ingredients might help since most of the time it is not the technique, it is the quality of the ingredients that really matters.

Have a 50 year old copy of original, now I don't have to spill on it! i can now share it with friends.

I was born and raised in Russia. I moved to the United States when I was nineteen years old. I reviewed this book out of curiosity. The author, most likely a Russian immigrant in second or third generation, got it all wrong! Author's ignorance about Russian traditions is truly amazing! I found errors on every page, virtually in every paragraph! Anyone who will read this book will get a completely twisted understanding of Russian culture, traditions and recipes!

My daughter loves this book. Lots of things her BABA made for her growing up!

not very practical at all. I ended up giving it to a friend who I dont think got much use out of it either...

Pro The recipes take into account that this is the US and not Russia -- they make substitutions when ingredients cannot be found here. There are a fair number of recipes. The instructions are reasonably clear. Con Sometimes the author seems to be writing a novel instead of a cookbook. There is too much extraneous text to suit me. Some people like that sort of thing, but I prefer a cookbook to be a cookbook. I also found it interesting that the Kindle price is higher than the price of a new paperback copy.

As a cooking book reference this wasn't what I wanted, I eventually deleted this off my Kindle. I'm not an expert in electronic books, however its very hard to print and page of this from a Kindle.

When I received this cookbook I was delighted to find many recipes I used to eat at home but never bothered to learn how to make them when I had the chance. My husband was a bit weary of Russian food, but he loves the pirog's and the kurnik chicken pie. When I started looking through the recipes I noticed that all of them are very much from scratch - no tins or pre cooked frozen ingredients involved, then I looked at the front of the book and realised the original edition is from the 60's so that would explain. Well even though I can buy pelmeny in the freezer in the supermarket, one Saturday afternoon I spent the afternoon making pelmeny from scratch ... a lot of work about 4 hours (not something to do every week) but it sure was fun and interesting and also made me realise how much effort my fater made into cooking for us :) The reason for 4 stars ... there are no photos in the book to go along with dishes, unfortunately as I like photos in cookbooks, after all we eat with our eyes and our tastebuds.

A Good Russian cookbook with some background and history on the recipes that makes for some interesting reading. If you have Russian family or are interested Russian cooking I would recommend this book. Only reason for 4 stars not 5, no pictures and measurements in American imperial, surely as an ebook there must be an easy way to quickly convert to the more common metric system. Luckily I rarely use exact measurements except in cakes.