Reviews for Flatbreads and Flavors: A Baker's Atlas

The average rating for Flatbreads and Flavors: A Baker's Atlas based on 2 reviews is 5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2012-02-09 00:00:00 Tina Maeder What a fabulous book - both for the colourful and/or touching narratives before each recipe and the recipes themselves. My only argument with the book is that the recipes call for substitutions of ingredients that were not easily available in the 1990s in Toronto, where the authors lived at the time. So, for Asian recipes, they call for jalapenos instead of green chilies. And often, it seems that the spiciness is dumbed down a little for palates that are unused to hot food. It's not that I mind the suggestions for what to substitute if the ingredients aren't available - it's that I'd like to know what ingredients (and how much) are traditionally used in each area of the world. That way, it would be a true baker's atlas. But how times have changed! Here in Toronto, we have relatively easy access to so many different ingredients for so many different kinds of cuisine. We've already made a number of the recipes in this book. And we have been thrilled. We can't wait to try several of the flatbreads on the barbecue this summer.

Review # 2 was written on 2012-03-06 00:00:00 Jerry Petty The ho-hum title and cover photo of this book do not nearly do it justice. A James Beard award-winner, this book is a travelogue, an anthropological study, a bread baking guide and recipe collection, and a collection of authentic international cuisines. The authors inspect flatbreads as a defining symbol of a culture's eating habits and traditions, often from firsthand experience. They have crafted their recipes so that home cooks in the developed Western world can reproduce flatbreads as authentically as possible, recommending creative adjustments to Western baking techniques and ways to combine common ingredients to mimic the different kinds of flours and flavorings in use in other regions. In addition to flatbread recipes, they include dozens of meal and condiment recipes, and suggestions on how to incorporate flatbreads in traditional or non-traditional meal planning. Sprinkled throughout the book are vignettes about their travels, both together and separate, giving a humorous, enlightening, or heartwarming view into rural and urban lives in some less-traveled regions of the world.