It is my intention in this report to give an overview of what this book is all about. This book is a textbook and a professional reference on quantity cooking for health. I want to analyse how well this book carries out this function and if it does it in such a way that it is accessible to its target audience, which takes in both students and lecturers. I also intend to compare it to at least one other book to see the standard, which this book has to live up to.
Book Statistics: Name: Professional Healthy Cooking Author: Sandy Kapoor, Ph.D, M.P.H, R.D Published: 1995 Printed: In the U.S.A Copyright: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Book Content: This textbook and professional reference on cooking a healthy cuisine analyses basic nutritional theory for culinary students and professionals. Contains 40 recipes made without fat, sugar, egg yolks and other ingredients deemed negative in the diet and which have a negative long or short-term health consequences. It also contains basic nutrition theory and numerous charts.
The book demonstrates how to modify recipes to reduce fat, cholesterol, sodium and calories and how to increase fibre and nutrients, the texts and recipes emphasize that healthy food can be delicious and well presented. The book is organised by food group and includes techniques for preparation. The content is as a whole is linked to nutrition and each chapter linked to each other. The author strives to keep the content relevant to the rest of the book and succeeds in doing so quite well. There is quite a bit of reading involved in each topic but it makes for interesting facts and knowledge. Altogether the content is both interesting and accessible.
Presentation: The book is presented in a very accessible manner. When you open to the contents section, everything is laid out for you. The book is broken down into 7 chapters, which incorporate the main problems that those trying to eat healthy, face, such as fat and salt. Each chapter is then broken down further into manageable bite-size pieces, which makes for easy navigation. Each chapter is broken down into a nutritional section followed by adapted recipes. I feel this layout makes it very easy for the reader to know where they are going and where they have been. I feel that anyone who was to lift this book to read it would find it very simple to go directly to any section, which had the information that they required.
Equally the charts provided for the reader make the information extremely accessible and plain so that everyone both lecturers, students and anyone who chooses to read it, can understand it with ease. Although the layout is very practical, it lacks any flare. There are no pictures, which I feel does little to inspire the reader to try out the recipes. I feel that in this sort of book where one is trying to encourage someone to change an aspect of their lifestyle such as their eating habits, pictures go a long way to helping this process be a success. As we are always told we eat with our eyes, I feel this is equally relevant to this book, with the book having no pictures; there is no inspiration to try the dishes.
Style: The style of this book is very essay based. The book, as stated before, is broken down into bite-size pieces, however some of these smaller pieces are not actually that small with some points taking a considerable amount of reading to get all the information. However this works quite well for students who need to understand the information quite quickly but who will learn a lot more by reading the entire book and what it has to offer. The majority of the book works quite well, in that it is to the point, and concise. Students can access the information they require without any problems. The only downfall of this books style is that each page runs into the next, each paragraph runs into the next, aside from the presence of the odd graph the book is just a lot of writing which can become quite monotonous for anyone reading it.
Equally the style of language used is approachable and understandable. On no occasion was I left wondering what the author was writing about which I found quite refreshing in a time when books seem to be inundated with technical jargon. Audience Suitability: Sandy Kapoor herself describes the purpose of this book as “to teach food service professionals and students how to cook healthy cuisine that is satisfying and appealing”.
The book does exactly that and very suitable to students, however the dishes may be a bit basic for professionals. The writer has done a very good job at trying to find a balance between the to levels of expertise and any achieved it through most of the book. I feel the parts where the book falls are in the amount of information provided. The title of the book would lead one to believe it is a cookbook, as would what the author says about it. However on reading it I found it to be more of a theory book, which I feel would suit a student better as they are in the process of learning where as a professional in my opinion will just want recipes to suit their business type.
Conclusion: Overall I feel this is a very suitable book for students and contains a lot of information. I feel the book would benefit from a few pictures to entice the reader into trying the dishes but apart from that, it is a very concise book. I feel that professionals within the kitchen arena will just want the recipes and that the information provided will be lost on them. The information itself too, is very accessible with it being split into bite-size pieces. This sort of lay out makes any theory book easy to read, which I found this book to be. Students I think will get the most benefit from this book and I feel that this book is a valuable piece of literature to have in any library.