SC - Digest 1696

[Martina Grasse]

re: the CIA textbook referencing "Fabulous Feasts', I said,
><< I've been meaning to write and recommend something like Redon's "The
>  Medieval Kitchen" >>
>
>If you aren't going to do it. I will. It is a travesty that such a 
>supposedly
>prestigious organization would include garbage as a source of learning for
>their students. I am absolutely appalled!!!!! :-0
>
>Ras

Go find a copy and please do write your own letter!

I'd been considering buying myself the newest version of their textbook.  
Considering the cost ($50-$60), and inconvenient size (dictionary like) I 
settled in with a cup of coffee and the book at Barnes and Noble for a good 
study session first.  I found a lot of the information on foods to be, well, 
unoriginal, available in any good cookbook.  Most of the technical advice 
was also generic, though there was information suitable to the professional 
level. There were some other book reference suggestions that I thought were 
not the best choices, but when I saw FF listed as a reference,I put it back 
on the shelf, finished my coffee, and left.

I know their goal is to drill the students until using a reference book is 
not needed. However, the information specific to a professional could have 
been put in a much handier sized book, even including the appendices and 
standard formulas in the back. There are a huge number of terribly well done 
photos illustrating very mundane subjects or decorating the chapter 
beginnings. A lot of them could have been skipped or made smaller. This 
monster must be hell on the students who must haul it around the campus. I 
understand that McGee's "on food and cooking" is also a required text.  If 
their textbook followed that in design, text packed w/only the required 
illustrations, then they would have come up with something useful. As it is, 
I don't think they knew whether they were producing a coffee table book or a 
useful reference.

Then again, my children's textbooks fall into the same error.  Filled with 
nifty graphics and photos and wide margins inviting ruin by doodling, they 
are all twice the size they need to be.  My 13 and 15 yr old duaghters 
regularly carry home books and notebooks equal to half their own weight or 
more.

Bonne

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