[Sca-cooks] Re:Larousse

[johnna holloway]

Johnnae llyn Lewis sends greetings.

Actually Larousse has other errors as well, but
people actually never sit down and read it from
cover to cover. I did a very comprehensive project
for a graduate advanced reference course
on sci/tech literature back in 1982 and did a major
investigation of Larousse then for that project.
It's always been one of those works that was an
accepted reference source that Librarians never
questioned when answering queries from the public.
My argument then as now was that it was questionable
in a lot of cases. I just pulled up the three reviews
from 1988 that were in major newspapers. It got 2
short reviews and a longer one from the LA Times that
noted that the wording even in the new edition was
quaint and arbritrary. That some definitions read
like they were still written for the UK although this
was a US edition. That the "tandoori" entry focused
on the wrong meat, etc. It also noted that the 8500
recipes had been reduced to 4000. There are of course
other editions than this 1988 American one, inc. one
that Books In Print lists for $350.00.
I have not seen anything about the new edition except
that it was slated for publication.

Of course, if you picked it up at a remaindered $10.
then buy it. It makes a nice bookend.

Speaking about the Oxford Companion, you ought to
also take a look at the Cambridge World History
of Food which went Oxford one better by making
theirs a two volume set and twice the price.In very
odd ways they really compliment each other in coverage.

Johnna Holloway

Daniel Phelps wrote:
>
> Johnnae llyn Lewis so sagely wrote:
>
> I wouldn't
> >recommend Larousse to anyone less than expert level
> >because of the number of food history mistakes and
> >errors that are in the work. Classic, it might be
> >but accurate it isn't. Save your money and buy
> >the Alan Davidson THE OXFORD COMPANON TO FOOD
> >and I would price that through some online sources
> >for the best buy.
>
> Indeed my lady I've been meaning to take a look at the Oxford.  I suggested
> Larousse because it has such an encyclopedic approach to food and its
> preparation and second hand older editions are so cheap.  I use it to check
> a redaction against a modern standard for the same foods.   I didn't realize
> that its forays into food history were so flawed.  Francocentric and
> Anglophobic I recognized as a given, ...presumedly its remarks about Henry
> VIII and "Sir Loin" and the "Baron of Beef" in the 1961 copy I own are to be
> taken with a grain of salt. :-P
>
> Daniel Raoul
>
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