Bones: Recipes, History and Lore

by Jennifer McLagan

Top food stylist and food writer Jennifer McLagan has a bone to pick: too often, people opt for boneless chicken breasts, fish fillets, and cutlets, when good cooks know that anything cooked on the bone has more flavor -- from chicken or spareribs to a rib roast or a whole fish. In Bones , Jennifer offers a collection of recipes for cooking beef, veal, pork, lamb, poultry, fish, and game on their bones. Chicken, steak, and fish all taste better when cooked on the bone, but we've sacrificed flavor for speed and convenience, forgetting how bones can enhance the taste, texture, and presentation of good food -- think of rack of lamb, T-bone steak, chicken noodle soup, and baked ham. In her simple, bare-bones style, Jennifer teaches home cooks the secrets to cooking with bones. Each chapter of Bones includes stocks, soups, ribs, legs, and extremities (except for whole fish -- they don't have any). Many of the recipes are simple, with the inherent flavors of the bones doing most of the work. There are traditional, elegant dishes, such as Roasted Marrow Bones with Parsley Salad, Olive-Crusted Lamb Racks, and Crown Roast of Pork, as well as new takes on homestyle favorites, such as Maple Tomato Glazed Ribs, Coconut Chicken Curry, and Halibut Steaks with Orange Cream Sauce. Stunning, full-color photographs of dishes like Rabbit in Saffron Sauce with Spring Vegetables; Grilled Quail with Sage Butter; and Duck Legs with Cumin, Turnips, and Green Olives are sure to inspire. In addition to the recipes, Bones includes a wealth of information on a wide range of bone-related topics, including the differences among cuts of meat, as well as the history and lore of bones.

Genres: Cookbooks, Food, Cooking, Nonfiction, History, Reference, Health

272 pages, Hardcover

First published October 25, 2005

Reviews

[Amber · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fan-freaking-tastic read if the reader is interested in bones, marrow and cookery.

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like her book Odd Bits which I've read and liked, this was an interesting read. It makes for a great introduction to the use of its theme, bones, in cooking - whether for stocks and soups or simply different methods of cooking meats on the bone. Details are explained well and each technique gets a recipe or two that walk you through the steps. None of the recipes are difficult, though many are time consuming. An easy and worthwhile read for anyone interested in meat cookery (and that includes poultry and fish).

[Mel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I hope the errors in the book were just in my library's ecopy- several times numbers were replaced by letters, leading to some confusion on my part.

It's an interesting subject, and gave me a lot of food for thought. I'm not sure I'm ready to go out and start buying marrow bones and the like, but I shall think more about what kinds of cuts of beef and chicken I get.

[Robert Beveridge · Rating 3 out of 5]

Jennifer McLagan, Bones (Morrow, 2005)

Full disclosure: I gave up land-based meat products almost six months ago. Not for any sort of ethical reason, but as a simple weight loss measure. It's working, though I have said many times that when I reach my weight goal, I will be celebrating with a raw steak. So do not take my current non-carnivorous state to mean I have any ethical bias against Bones, Jennifer McLagan's cookbook having to do with everything animal. Quite the opposite; much of what she has to say here is great. The other side of the coin is something I'm finding in a lot of more specialized cookbooks I've been reading recently, though: repetition.

This is a book that could have been half its length, probably (though one thinks that given the corresponding reduction in color photos it would have become a quarter), and would still have been just as valuable as it is. But unlike Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day (q.v.), in which the information that could have been contained in a pamphlet is well worth the cost of admission, I had a hard time finding anything in Bones that the average grillmaster couldn't have figured out on his own vis-a-vis the core ingredients here (read: the meat). Thus, the value of Bones, and it does have value, is in the ways you dress those bones up: the gremolatas, the sauces, the side dishes that pop up occasionally. Great deliciousness is to be had here, but check out the library's copy before deciding to spring for it. ***

[Nikki · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought Bones was fine. I didn't need the "lore" and the recipes were a little repetitive (you do not need directions to make a stock, jus and consomme at the head of every new chapter for its respective meat type), but overall I bookmarked a good series of recipes and it is definitely a good resource for an adventurous cook. McLagan does not shy away from bones, no, but neither offal, strange cuts, game meats, etc etc. The pictures that are included are also good.

[tmll · Rating 3 out of 5]

I appreciate the insights and advice about bone/variety meat preparation but, there is something about her personal anecdotes that just make me wanna yack. That said, this book did inspire a week of bone roasting and consumption and a few rather interesting conversations prompted in the midst of pulling meat from a beef knuckle.

[David G Anderson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oxtail daube will bring you back to gelatinized succulence à la caveman. Queen Victoria breakfasted on bone marrow every day, the very nutrient that our proto-humanoid ancestors sucked from the tool-smashed bones of abandoned carcasses in the wild African savannahs -- and the key to our enhanced brain power. But it's not only for these reasons that I eat 'em.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fantastically illustrated recipes that range from predictable (given the book's title) to inventive. The lamb shanks in pomegranate is a great party dish. The photographs are worth the price of admission.

[Anna Pervukhin Sammons · Rating 5 out of 5]

Inspiring.

[Rick · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've made a few recipes from this book so far. All have been fairly easy and quite tasty.

[Monica · Rating 5 out of 5]

Happiness is a beef shank, a bottle of wine, and a silent snowfall.

[Nicole · Rating 4 out of 5]

Seems interesting. Did not get an indepth read, but there's recipes (which seem surprisingly simple), diagrams, chapters on cuts of meat. A true carnivore's book.

[Anna Macnak · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thoroughly enjoying the history and enthusiasm about this nutrient-rich food!

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Saved a couple recipes from it, and like her general leanings and message.

[Amazon]

This wasn't what I was hoping for.

If you are looking for recipes for bone-in meat, it will be great.

I was hoping for a lot more marrow, tiny-grilled-fishbones-as-chips-substitute, that kind of thing.

[Rob · Rating 5 out of 5]

An essential cookbook.

[Maria · Rating 3 out of 5]

lots of great recipes to try.

[G]

Loving it so far.