Book Review: Menu Cookbook

Another old book? I know...I read a new book today. So new that it won't be in the stores until next week. I'm trying to get back to a new book everyday but I did want to pop these older reviews, which have been sitting on the computer for years, out of their can. 

Book Review: Menu Cookbook

Author: Better Homes & Gardens magazine staff

Date: 1972, 1973

Publisher: Meredith Corporation

ISBN: none

Length: 96 pages

Illustrations: many color photos

Quote: “Each menu...consists of favorite foods, interestingly combined...All use the Basic Four Food Groups as a nutritional yardstick.”

Which is not as encouraging as the writers must have thought. The Basic Four Food Groups was a dietetic concept worked out on the assumption that, since rats and humans need pretty much the same nutrients, they need to balance these nutrients in pretty much the same proportions. Dietitians don't use it any more.

Basically humans seem to need more greens, more grains, and less protein, in proportion to our body size, than rats need. Humans who are not consuming huge amounts of fat and protein from other sources don’t seem to need to choke down a quart of cow’s milk every day. There seem to be different diet plans that can work for different humans, and some even think that humans may inherit different nutritional needs...anyway, a majority of humankind do not need dairy products at every meal. The authors of Menu Cookbook assume that we do, which is my main objection to this book.

If you are, or you want to eat with a friend who is, in the majority of adults who lose lactose tolerance over the years, you’ll need to adapt most of these menus. In some cases it’s simple: moisten dough with water, not milk; add cheese only to individual plates at the table. Given that lactase persistence is such a minority trait and that those who have it can always drink a glass of milk, common courtesy would suggest that most of the meals we serve to groups of people should be basically dairy-free, with dairy products offered on the side for those who want them. But in the long run it’s not quite that simple. Carnivores use most of the excess calcium found in cow’s milk to digest excess fat and protein; vegans don’t necessarily need all that milk, but they do need to watch fat levels in the diet to prevent imbalances.

If you are, or cook for, people with other food intolerances, this cookbook may be frustrating. As a gluten-intolerant adult who’s done most of my cooking for a lactose-intolerant, low-sodium-intake husband and various patients on low-fat, low-sodium, and sometimes diabetic diets, I look at these menus and think “No way.” I can adapt one recipe at a time from this book, but I can’t use the menus. Menu items too simple to be written out as full-length recipes, like “tomato juice” and “carrot sticks,” are acceptable. Of the recipes written out in this book I could use, without adaptation, 23...most of which are salads.

On the other hand the changes required for each recipe are slight. People who cook by the “humans are giant rats” theory will make a perfectly acceptable pot of chili and then dump a load of cheese into it. All I have to do is save time, money, and mess by leaving out the cheese.

There’s enough variety in Menu Cookbook that everyone can use or adapt some of the recipes. As a new book, this one might have been overpriced, but if you buy it secondhand, it may be a good deal.