How to Slice an Onion: Cooking Basics and Beyond--Hundreds of Tips, Techniques, Recipes, Food Facts, and Folklore

by Bunny Crumpacker

If you can slice an onion, you can cook almost anything. That's the first premise of this book. There are dozens more, all underlining the happy thought that cooking is easier than they tell you it is.

 

The recipes and tips here--and there are many--are simple: it's flavor that counts, not a list of ingredients longer than a kitchen cabinet can bear. The methods are uncomplicated (mix vegetables and olive oil right in the roasting pan; why bother with a bowl?). Kitchen mythology, we learn, is one thing, and food history another. Mythology: the need for expensive slot-top box holders for knives. History: Did you ever wonder who Granny Smith was?

 

How to Slice an Onion demystifies the culinary arts, making cooking simple for the beginner and opening new possibilities for the experienced cook. It's a kitchen companion, a friend at hand when you stand at the stove, a fascinating and amusing look at the history of the food we eat, and a charming guide to the fundamentals and finer details of good home cooking.

 

For the beginner, the accomplished chef, and even for those who just like to read about food, this book is a good friend to have in the kitchen.

Genres: Nonfiction, Food, Cooking, Cookbooks

303 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 2009

Reviews

[Sundry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Honestly, I already knew how to slice an onion in the way that Crumpacker suggests, but I've been picking up cook books and books about food/cooking at the library just about every time I go and this one caught my eye. As usual, one person's basics are sometimes another person's amazing discoveries.

How was it that I'd missed the idea of covering chopped fresh basil with olive oil to preserve it for a week or more in the fridge? I ended up using some of the mixture for a quick pasta dinner when I found myself short on time one evening. Just mixed that and some Parmesan cheese into hot pasta and wow.

This is a rather rambling book, but I like the way Bunny rambles. (Oh my, that name: Bunny Crumpacker. Sounds like the punchline to an off color joke!) Her style made me want to be sure and read every morsel of this book to avoid missing something. Sweet and old fashioned, like your favorite aunt might put it.

There are a few loose threads.. She advises us to save the water from boiling pasta, but never explains why. Still, it was a fun and useful read.

[Zora O'Neill · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love the tone of this book--especially sensible and wry, and great, I would think, for beginner cooks or anyone who needs a little nudge into regular, undramatic home cooking. There's plenty of offhand wisdom dispensed on all sorts of topics--onions, eggs, cookware, etc.

The weak link is the recipes, which all seem a bit more dowdy than they have to be. It's good they're simple, to match the tone of the book, but they're largely uninspiring. But this may be due to the fact that I'm beyond basic cooking levels.

[Rivkah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Small yet enjoyable book about cooking basics. Fun writing styles, good ideas, recipes that "read well". Have to return it to the library, but am planning to buy it, and check out other books by Bunny Crumpacker.

[Clare · Rating 3 out of 5]

There were some parts I really liked. There were some parts that were really boring. There were a few parts where I just rolled my eyes. Overall it was a good reading experience, however I would like to read just one book about food that does not include any fat shaming or calorie counting.

[Vjera · Rating 4 out of 5]

Amusing read for a cookbook. No pictures, but lots of basic tips, with a few example recipes. Lots of wry side comments.

[Chris Power · Rating 2 out of 5]

Who this book is for: beginning cooks. If you're not a beginning cook, you don't need to read this book. If you're just learning about food and how to use it in the kitchen you will find a lot of helpful techniques in this book, and for that part I would recommend it. However, most of the techniques and tricks she talks about can be learned from reading recipes and other books as well. The title is very revealing as to the rest of the book: basic kitchen concepts and a little dry.

What I liked about this book:
It's full of good solid advice on what to do in the kitchen. It is humorous with lots of corny puns--I like that type of humor. It covers many areas of cooking such as vegetables, cutting, roasting, dairies, etc. and gives the reader a solid foundation in these areas in which to begin their kitchen adventures. Occasionally it delves a little deeper into the exploratory aspects. The author's name is awesome. Bunny Crumpacker. Seriously cool. That's actually the reason I checked it out at the library.

What I disliked about this book:
I felt like it started off a little rocky and took a while for Bunny (the author) to find her writing style. As the book progressed, her writing became more loose and natural--easier to read. It was actually difficult to read for me, not because I found the subject matter uninteresting, but because it didn't offer much new knowledge or knowledge that couldn't be found in other, more interesting books. I'm not someone who necessarily needs pictures in my cookbooks, but for a beginner's cookbook, I feel like they're essential. Heck, I'm always looking at pictures even in the non-beginner cookbooks. That's one thing that makes reading cookbooks so much fun.

In the end, I felt that it did not capture my attention, and of all the cook books I read, this one took me the longest.

[Alyce · Rating 2 out of 5]

If a picture's worth a thousand words, you would think that a book with this title would include enough of them to clearly illustrate how to do things like, errr... slice an onion. Unfortunately, the author explains technique, and it is more confusing than enlightening. But this book is not necessary anyway, because Russo and Lukins deftly covered this territory years ago in "The New Basics", and since then a plethora of interesting and informative books have been released (such as "Cooking" by James Peterson and "How to Cook Everything" by Mark Bittman). Hence, I see no need to slog through this book, unless you have been unable to find recipes for rhubarb juice, cucumber salad, or preserved sweet lemons.

[Nucky · Rating 4 out of 5]

This books is very helpful to me: A young lady who was raised by her daddy, who isn't really good in the kitchen (his recipes included shoe-leather steaks and gravy that looked like mashed potatoes!). It really has a lot of great advice as well as things that are commonsense that I really didn't know! For example, how to make soup, and yes, how to slice an onion. I think that this book says what it is about: Cooking Basics. There are millions of recipe books, but if you don't know a lick about cooking, this book really gives you the confidence that "yes, I know what I'm doing."

[Cheryl · Rating 2 out of 5]

Seriously. Bunny Crumpacker? How can you NOT want to read this. But then I read it and it was a little too simple for me.

[Nenna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Strangely enjoyable, but as a vegan, I cannot take as much from the book as I desire. Water and onions yes; roasts adn veal-based stocks, definitely not.

[Heather]

I don't think I will read all of this one, but I have fun with her raphsodies about food. Also, you've just got to love the author's name!

[Kristina · Rating 4 out of 5]

So helpful!! Must-read.