Mimsy Were the Borogoves

Food: Recipes, cookbook reviews, food notes, and restaurant reviews. Unless otherwise noted, I have personally tried each recipe that gets its own page, but not necessarily recipes listed as part of a cookbook review.

Mimsy Review: Classic Chinese Cuisine

Reviewed by Jerry Stratton, May 23, 2001

Around the net

Classic Chinese Cuisine• starts with a short introduction to the “culture” of cooking and eating in China, with a little bit about each of the regions, a couple of definitions of things like black beans and bean curd, and a short paen to the wok.

AuthorRosemary Moon
Year1995
Length252 pages
Book Rating5

Rosemary Moon has edited a couple of “Classic” Asian ethnic cookbooks. I’ve seen Classic Indian Cuisine and Classic Chinese Cuisine•, and both are quite good basic collections for those cultures. I can’t speak to their authenticity, but these are well-designed cookbooks with a variety of recipes from simple to “quite fiddly”. The latter is part of the description, in Classic Chinese Cuisine, of “Stuffed Snow Peas”. I haven’t tried them, but they certainly do sound fiddly, don’t they?

Rosemary Moon starts the recipes off with soups, which are typically used not as an appetizer but as a drink. “Wine, water and tea are not traditionally served in China to accompany a family meal.” You’ll find the classics such as Hot & Sour Soup, Wonton Soup, Shark’s Fin Soup--it uses Shark’s Fin, which seems quite difficult to find--and other thin and thick soups. Think of it as the “beverage” section that precedes meal recipes in “western” cookbooks.

Appetizers includes the ubiquitious Spring Rolls, the wonderfully tasty Honey Soy Chicken Wings, and a small variety of other wings, spareribs, and rolls. There are very few appetizers, and only a few more soups. The bulk of the book is in the meal recipes: Fish & Shellfish; Chicken & Duck; Pork, Beef, & Lamb; and Vegetables. Among the high points are a Stir-Fried Tofu Salad to be served cold, and an incredibly simple “Lacquered Duck”.

Following the meal recipes are a number of ways of preparing rice and noodles. Besides the standard “boiled” rice are a number of fried rice dishes and various noodle preparations. If you are a fan of bacon and spice, you’ll find “South Sea Noodles”, very satisfying, with its bacon, curry, scallions, shrimp, and Hoisin sauce.

She tops the recipes off with a good number of desserts, starting off with “Stir-Fried Fruit Salad”. There are, of course, a couple of rice puddings, a sinfully simple “Bananas Cooked in Coconut Milk”, one custard, and a “quite fiddly” Stuffed Litchis. My favorite here has to be, however, the “Peanut Butter Cake”, which is exactly what it says: an eggy cake flavored with vanilla and peanut butter.

If there is anything to complain about in this book, it is that none of the people in the illustrations, adults or children, seem to be enjoying the food they’re eating! Eating seems to be a very serious business to the illustrator, not something to be taken happily or even absently in conversation with others. Overall, however, if you have no collection of Chinese recipes and you are looking to expand your repertoire, I can strongly recommend Classic Chinese Cuisine as a good place to start.

Honey Soy Chicken Wings

  • 2 tbsp peanut oil,
  • 1 lb chicken wings,
  • ¼ cup light soy sauce,
  • 2 tbsp honey,
  • 1 tsp sesame seeds,
  • 1 clove crushed garlic,
  • 1 tsp grated fresh ginger,
  • ½ tsp salt.
  1. Heat a wok, add the oil, and, when hot, add chicken wings.
  2. Fry 10 minutes.
  3. Strain off excess oil.
  4. Add the soy sauce, honey, sesame, garlic, ginger, and salt to the chicken in the wok.
  5. Lower the heat and simmer 20 minutes, turning the wings occasionally.
  6. Serve hot or cold.

Classic Chinese Cuisine

Rosemary Moon

My cost: $8.00

Recommendation: Nice Recipes•

If you enjoyed Classic Chinese Cuisine…

For more about Asian, you might also be interested in Corn and clam soup, The Art of Korean Cooking, and The Complete Book of Oriental Cooking.

For more about cookbooks, you might also be interested in A Concise Encyclopedia of Gastronomy, Bull Cook Historical Recipes, Cavalier Cooking, Cooking the Bahamian Way, Country Commune Cooking, Life, Loves, and Meat Loaf, The Art of Korean Cooking, The Casserole Cookbook, The Complete Book of Oriental Cooking, The Complete Bread Cookbook, The Frugal Gourmet Celebrates Christmas, The Healthy Cuisine of India, The New Larousse Gastronomique, A Decade of Jell-O Joys: 1963-1973, Saucepans and the Single Girl, The Northwest Cartoon Cookery, Good Food From Mexico, Laurel’s Kitchen, The Cooking of Vienna’s Empire, James Beard’s Fireside Cook Book, French Bistro Cooking, A Fifteenth Century Cookry Boke, Crockery Cookery, Southern Cooking, The Frugal Gourmet Keeps the Feast, The Fannie Farmer Cookbook, French Cooking Simplified With a Food Processor, In Good Taste, Heritage of America Cookbook, Our Favorite Hometown Recipes Vol. II, The Indian Spice Kitchen, Japanese Country Cookbook, La Cuisine Française, Larousse Treasury of Country Cooking, The Natural Foods Cookbook, A Russian Jew Cooks in Peru, Soul Food Cook Book, The Tassajara Trilogy, Pains Spéciaux & Viennoiseries, Whole Earth Cookbook, The Wok: a chinese cook book, Southern Living Cookbook for Two, Lebanese Cuisine, The Art of Syrian Cookery, Popular Greek Recipes, In a Persian Kitchen, The Art of Pennsylvania Dutch Cooking, The Southern Living Cookbook Library, The Donna Rathmell German Bread Machine Cookbook collection, The missing indexes, St. Mary’s Altar Society Cookbooks, The Deplorable Index, My year in food: 2022, My Year in Food: 2023, Franklin Golden Syrup Recipes, Promotional cookbook archive, Finding vintage cookbook downloads, Chiquita Banana’s Recipe Book, A golden harvest of sunflower seeds, A 1950 recipe calendar for 2023, Hope Lutheran 1950 Lenten fish au gratin, Tempt Them with Tastier Foods: Second Printing, Stoy Soy Flour: Miracle Protein for World War II, A Traveling Man’s Cookery Book, Rumford Recipes Sliding Cookbooks, A Bicentennial Meal for the Sestercentennial, Refrigerator Revolution Revisited: 1928 Frigidaire, Refrigerator Revolution Revisited: 1942 Cold Cooking, Padgett Sunday Supper Club, Club recipe archive, and Promotional Cookbook Archive.