Is a $200 cookbook worth it?

by Shayna Glick, Posted Oct 7th 2008 @ 1:30PM

Photo of a dish from the Fat Duck restaurant that has vapor emmerging from it due to liquid nitrogen.

There's quite a bit of buzz about Heston Blumenthal's new cookbook, at least on the other side of the pond. One of the masters of molecular gastronomy and the owner of three Micheline star The Fat Duck, Mr. Blumenthal is renowned for his amazing, and amazingly complex food.

Now he's brought his molecular know-how to the masses...sort of. His new cookbook, The Big Fat Duck Cookbook, is a huge, 516 page, 12 pound, £100 ($200-though I found it for about $145) monster. I quite frankly have a hard time believing that many people are going to be rushing out to get it, especially at this economically uncertain time. It's pointed out in both of the articles in the Guardian this week, that not only is the book expensive, but it requires expensive and hard to find ingredients and equipment. Both of those aspects make it less likely that anyone would do anything more than drool over the reportedly exquisite photography.

Still, I'd love to be able to get a look at the Big Fat Duck Cookbook. I wonder if my local library will be getting this tome? If I could take pictures and see what recipes I could make, I'd definitely be one happy cook. Unfortunately, I think the library is the only way many people would be able to get a look at it.

Filed Under: Newspapers, Books, Celebrities
Tags: Big fat Duck Cookbook, BigFatDuckCookbook, british isles, heston blumenthal, HestonBlumenthal, molecular gastronomy, MolecularGastronomy, The Fat Duck, the guardian, TheFatDuck, TheGuardian

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Reader comments (Page 1 of 1)

10-07-2008 @2:22PM Pyrofish said... Now my interest is piqued. Most of my hobbies are obscure enough that I have to build my own tools to do what needs to be done. Cooking has been relatively easy, with only research on science and technique to overcome. With a book like this, it sounds like I would need to come up with my own equipment, which invariably means building it for me. I may just have to buy this book ;-)
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10-07-2008 @4:52PM Andrew said... You could do what I did and buy the Alinea cookbook. Same genre, much cheaper.
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10-07-2008 @5:58PM Matthew F. said... That's a nice middle ground between the $30 Alinea and the $300 El Bulli cookbooks, all of which are fantastic.
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10-08-2008 @12:51PM wattacetti said... Weenie (sic). Ordered this one (and Alinea and Under Pressure) when I found out it was available, and I've got powders and other gadgets all ready to go (okay, maybe not the micro-evaporator). Now to twiddle until it ships in November.
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10-09-2008 @6:59AM w. said... I ate at the fat duck in April this year and BOY was it awesome. The moment the big fat duck cookbook became available for preorder, i placed an order for it (as well as under pressure and the robuchon cookbook - i already preordered the alinea one when that was available earlier this year).

now i'm really impatient.
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