America The Great Cookbook: The Food We Make for the People We Love from 100 of Our Finest Chefs and Food Heroes by Joe Yonan

America The Great Cookbook: The Food We Make for the People We Love from 100 of Our Finest Chefs and Food Heroes Reviews

• 
  Ivonne Rovira

  America The Great Cookbook lives up to its name: Joe Yonan has included recipes from all across the United States, from extremely famous chefs and obscure cooks, from every demographic and from every category. Not a single one of its 707 pages is wasted, as each recipe builds in another taste of America, from its Native Americans to its most recent immigrants. If you can’t find plenty to love here, you’re not even half-trying. Five big stars!
  
  Even better: Proceeds go to No Kid Hungry!
• 
  Kristi

  Enjoyed this one. I loved getting to see some recipes from my favorite chefs and discovering new ones. They definitely should have removed Mario B. From the line up or put him in the back of the book, he’s one of the first few chefs and it took a while to get that sour taste of my mouth, pun intended.
  
  The recipes range in cooking skill, but unfortunately it seems many have ingredients that aren’t readily available for the simple home chef.
  
  Main dishes, desserts and sides are all covered as well as a variety of cuisine and diets. Several vegan and veggie options we welcoming amount the numerous meat options.
• 
  Mary

  I'll add more to this review after trying a couple of the recipes, but first....
  WOW!!!
  Dear Joe Yonan,
  Thank you for compiling a gorgeous, interesting, USABLE cookbook. (I'm hugging it, right now.)
  FedEx delivered my Goodreads giveaway copy about an hour ago, and I can't put it down! Really, really!
  
  First of all, the cover...it's above and beyond the standard cookbook. I love the different textures, the simple rich design, the font....everything. A CLOTH RIBBON BOOKMARK, for crying in a bucket!
  
  Your introduction was SO good. Schoolhouse Rock Melting Pot song, of all things! It grabbed a 1970's kid right there, and I was ready for more.
  
  I don't even know where to begin when it comes to the recipes and chefs who contributed....
  I love the photos, the little letters from each chef, their signature on their pictures.
  Recipes like: (wiping drool off the keyboard) Pumpkin Cake Donuts with Cider Glaze, Monday Night Red Beans and Rice, Strawberry Rhubarb Pie, Brick Roasted Chicken...these I can do! And the recipes like: Jollof Rice (from Nigeria), Tart Lemon Tart, Oyster Pan Roast, and Baklava Cheesecake....these I'm excited to try!
  The recipes are in standard AND metric measurements for the most part, have clear directions (even on the most intimidating looking recipes), and there's room on the pages for the cook's notes, something most cookbooks do not take into account but a very fine detail.
  
  This is one of those "standing in Barnes and Noble, coveting, thinking what to pawn in order to buy it" cookbooks.
  With gratitude for your swoony cookbook,
  Mary Jane
• 
  Alisa Wilhelm

  This is way more gourmet than I expected it to be, though I did recognize a few of my favorite chefs who contributed. I'm looking forward to trying some of these recipes, but many are unrealistic for the average home chef. Lovely collection, just more along the lines of those once a month big kitchen experiments than even an average weekend project.
• 
  Shirley

  What a delightful way to see the works of so many writers, bloggers, chefs and one or two recipes.
• 
  SqueakerKitty

  note: I am reviewing this based on the recipes, not based on the chef bios. I honestly almost never read cookbooks cover-to-cover, and this one was no different. I skipped over most of the chef bios and just focused on the recipes.
  
  this book collects recipes from many different chefs (usually 1-2 per chef). naturally, that means that the type of cuisine and the quality and complexity of the recipes vary wildly. there is a bare-bones, barely-a-recipe recipe for hamburgers, there is an achievable-on-a-weeknight recipe for mushroom ragu, and there is an elaborate recipe for porcini mousse. some recipes are vegetarian, some are carnivore; some are "ethnic", some are americanah. etc.
  
  with that said - this wont become your go-to family cookbook, but it is almost guaranteed to have *something* that will appeal to you. I tagged about 20 recipes that I would like to try (ex. the mushroom ragu), and also many recipes that I would never touch (porcini mousse).
  
  I think that this cookbook has many unique, interesting recipes, and of course I am a sucker for a pretty cover.
• 
  Ambur Taft

  Lovely. Not necessarily a cookbook to motivate one to try a bunch of new dishes or make a weekly meal plan, but very fun to see what 100 famous chefs/cookbook writers use as their go to favorites for gatherings or comfort. Great pictures and some lovely pictures.
• 
  Bethany Curran

  A fun cookbook to peruse. The recipes vary from (too) simple to (very) complicated. I loved the photography and the variety of today's food influencers. A great coffee table book.
• 
  Honest Mabel

  so it is good and worth it on sale
  
  But I almost gave up at 50% because if there were maybe 3-4 actually approachable recipes by then it would be surprising. It opens strong then it has a lot of things that I had to google what vegetable it even was and then substitutes it was just something I never heard of or ever see at a typical grocery store. Maybe a specialty one? But at least not near me on Long Island. But at about 54% the book changes and its recipes that people will really make and don’t make me feel pretentious reading
• 
  Heather

  Great idea, and a great cause. However, despite the premise that this is supposed to be what these foodies feed their loved ones at home many of these recipes are very time, labor, and ingredient intensive. Certainly not on a weeknight, anyway. I still really enjoyed reading it, and will make the recipes that don’t take more than 3 hours or require ingredients that I can’t find anywhere other than a specialty store.
• 
  Liquidlasagna

  Chefs around the country—think Mario Batali, Carla Hall and Dan Barber—share the dishes that make them tick, as well as the stories behind them. It's a cross section of and a love letter to the state of our national cuisine, with recipes like pink deviled eggs from Ruth Reichl and fried chicken with red velvet waffles from Marcus Samuelsson.
  Tasting Table
• 
  Robyn Schultz (ladyrobyns)

  So disappointing. There were so many notable chefs that weren't included. Tom Douglas? Where was he? The recipes went from too complicated to so simple that it made my head swim. Not worth the time and effort.
• 
  Barbara Hugh

  A big heavy book. Only a few recipes I would use. The one page bios of the chefs interesting.
• 
  Amy

  Needed more state representation.
• 
  Nadia

  What a great collection from America's top chefs showing what truly makes us great!
• 
  Lori

  If you collect cookbooks or love to read them like I do, you’ll enjoy learning about these chefs and what they prepare for those they love.