The New Midwestern Table: 200 Heartland Recipes: A Cookbook

I first became acquainted with Amy Thielen from her cooking show and loved her approach to Midwestern cooking, so I had to get this book. Everything about it - from the text to the recipes to the photos - is outstanding, and I don’t say this very often about any cookbook. (I have ~100). I have now tried about 10 recipes, and all except one were exceptional. (The one that wasn’t was due to my bad, as I didn’t follow the directions correctly). It’s Midwest cooking, so pretty much all the ingredients are easy to obtain, and the results are truly restaurant-delicious, without any difficult cooking techniques. The recipes really work. In fact, it is among the top 5 cookbooks that I’ve cooked the most from, and I’m not even done with all the recipes I want to try. In addition to recipes, this cookbook has a lot of helpful tips, tricks, and hacks for doing things in the kitchen efficiently, like peeling garlic quickly, grinding spices without a grinder, cutting a chicken, making a paper lid, etc. For those who like to read their cookbooks as much as they like to cook from them, Thielen has you covered, as she does a great job conveying her love for the Midwest, its cooks and purveyors, and its food. There are extensive headnotes and sidebars that really give you a sense of how special this cooking is. She’s a wonderful writer who shares her personal connections to the land, the people, and the food. And the photos! While there aren’t photos of every recipe, there are plenty enough to make your mouth water and tempt you to get into the kitchen and try them out. The food is gorgeously photographed and styled to look like it was done at home instead of by professionals. Everything looks approachable and not too staged and perfect. Two final notes - it may not be that big of a deal for many, but I love the overall formatting of the text in the book. Not the excessive white space you find in a lot of cookbooks nowadays that makes things look cold and intimidating. Instead, it seemingly invites the reader to join in, whether you’re reading the cookbook or cooking from it. Like I said, this might not be that big of a deal for most, but it’s these little details that make me want to pick up this cookbook and turn to any page and start cooking. Also its size, 9.5” x 7.75”, makes it perfect for bringing into the kitchen without being too unwieldy; it is 400 pages long after all. I give this cookbook unequivocally 5 stars all around!

If you're a "just the recipes, please" reader, this book is not for you: it's chock full of informative headnotes telling us about each dish, and rich with intermezzo stories about, for example, how she and her family harvest natural wild rice; finding top-flight prosciutto in Des Moines; her cheese discoveries in Wisconsin; Bologna Day in Pierz, MN, and so much more. This is the kind of cookbook I love. I devoured it from cover to cover. The author dives deep into the history of Midwestern cooking and weaves in evocative stories from several prior generations, both within her family and beyond. Although the author's home base is in far northern Minnesota, virtually every Midwest state makes an appearance when it comes to ingredients. I think this book is "must" reading for any adventurous cook who has ever had one toe in the Midwest. Other readers who, as I do, love to read from cover to cover cookbooks that are rich with history and information about recipes and ingredients from far-flung states and nations will also value this book. The author is quite clear about her boundaries in recipes and ingredients: they include only items that can be found in her small-town grocery store, plus the bounty of what she loves for which to forage or share with neighbors. The only exception is fresh oysters--however, she does give us the history of why fresh oysters came to be so important in the 19th-century Midwest, and how and why the locals seek them out. As for foraging, wild rice, persimmons, morels, raspberries, birch (for syrup), chokecherries, grapes (grape juice). And fish, of course, in the "Land of 10,000 Lakes." Fried smelt, lake herring, Minnesota crayfish (who knew?) and, of course, Northern and walleye pike, and even eelpout. How about smoked lake trout baked in cream? Meat? Wild boar (although we can substitute venison, beef, or pork)? South Dakota lamb chislic? Homemade Braunschweiger? Although these ingredients sound exotic, most (or their suggested substitutions) are actually accessible for those lucky enough to have a first-class butcher store, fishmonger, and/or farmers' market. Some ingredients may not be accessible to those who are not into foraging or do not have access to the ingredients for which she forages in Northern Minnesota. However, I'm okay with that because she makes clear that her manifesto is simply to provide recipes with ingredients available to her in her micro-climate. Moreover, although I'm unlikely ever to cook with wild boar, I don't feel cheated: there are a LOT of recipes in this book. I copied 7 recipes, some of which will wait for next summer's farmers' market, but some that I'm going to make now, such as Addie's Farmhouse White Bread. Why, when I "don't make" white bread? Because, after hearing the story, I simply have to make it! Kindle format review: there are lots of color photos, although not necessarily for every recipe; clickable index and clickable embedded recipes. This makes a wonderful companion volume for the author's delightful memoir "Give A Girl A Knife," which I read just before I read this cookbook. I didn't even know that she had a show on Food Network. However, having learned her story of living without electricity and running water in her memoir made her beautiful writing about her recipes, her towns, and her family, ever so much more interesting. Don't worry: although she does tell us how to roast beets in the fireplace, all of the recipes assume that the cook has electricity, a modern stove/oven, and running water!

I LOVE this cookbook! I grew up in Minnesota but recently moved to Alaska. My husband got this for me for Christmas and, maybe it's the nostalgia of cooking midwestern dishes while I'm far away from home, but I dove right in. I've probably made over a dozen recipes out of this book in the handful of months that I've had it and they are all winners (ok, I didn't love the herring salad one, but I suspected that going into it). Not only are the recipes SO good, but I love the little intros to each one and her instructions have been teaching me new cooking techniques along the way. Each time I make a recipe, I feel like I am learning a little more about ingredients and cooking methods that help me feel more confident about experimenting on my own with other things. These are recipes that I would be confident making for guests. They do take a little time (the main dishes/meats, especially, are not quick recipes), but they are SO worth it. For me, these recipes are a magical mix of comfort/familiarity and gourmet/unexpected. I crave rich, complex flavors, but I love the Midwestern staples. I am so wowed by the way Amy Thielen takes basics and jazzes them up with techniques she's picked up from both rural home cooks and fancy urban chefs. Her love of the whole process is so evident. I just can't say enough about this book! I've already given it as a gift and plan to give more. I have flipped through it so many times and almost treat it like a coffee table book when I'm not cooking from it. It is beautiful and full of truly amazing recipes. I didn't really think about Midwestern food as a category before, but when I flip through this book I think, "This is my kind of food." This is my favorite cookbook (and I didn't think I'd ever have a favorite cookbook).

I am a cookbook junkie - in fact I have a group of 500 on Facebook - called Cookbook Junkies. But when I first saw Amy's show on Food Network - I thought - I hope she has a book coming out - and was so excited to see she already had one! This book has dozens of recipes I will make - Old Fashioned Pounded Cheese with Walnuts and Port Syrup, the Fried Onion Dip - she made in her last show, Corn Fritters with Green Chile Buttermilk Dip, Lace Potato Pancakes, Peanut Maple Fudge Bars - everything looks incredible and easy to make. There are also elaborate recipes Rosemary Infused Brown Butter Chicken Breasts, Butcher's Kraut --- and classics with twists - Classic Beef Pot Roast with Pistachio Salt, Baked Chicken withi Porcini Spice Rub. I am so excited about this book that I formed a group Cooking from The New Midwestern Table on Facebook - we are going to start cooking from this book by mid October. I am going to make a few of her recipes this weekend - If I find that I am wrong on the quality and value of this cookbook - I will come back and edit this review. I have many cookbooks - but I have never been this excited to start cooking from a cookbook. I learned she is working on Book Two -- cannot wait to see what that brings. I have now made several recipes the fried onion dip, the chicken and wild rice hot dish, the corn fritters, the stuffed pork chops that were all incredibly delicious..clear instructions and great results. This is quickly becoming my favorite cookbook. Note...a recipe that isn't in the book but was on her show I've made two times now the Maple Bread...on my word. So good.

Recipes show cuisine that is beyond fancy for the Midwest I grew up in. Not an everyday recipe book for sure, but then I don't think that was her intent.

Lots of comfort food recipes in between anecdotes about growing up in the rural midwest. A number of old favorites (chocolate chip cookies) with new twists (add instant coffee). Would be a good gift for someone who wants to read the stories and look at the pictures, but not necessarily a great cookbook.

I was born and grew up in the midwest (Missouri), so I'm somewhat familiar with the fresh ingredients that are so abundant and delicious there but so nonexistent ... or mediocre ... elsewhere. US-71 -- the highway that runs from the Canadian border in northern Minnesota, that passes within shouting distance of Two Inlets Township in north central Minnesota (not far from Bemidji, one of my favorite vacation stops, where I had my first taste of walleye in 2001) where Amy Thielen's cabin is located -- that same US-71 highway passes through my old south Kansas City neighborhood about two blocks away from my former home. I grew up helping my mother tend a large garden every summer -- fresh corn, melons, beans, okra, tomatoes -- a mother who routinely produced a pantry full of canned tomato sauce, apple butter, spiced peaches, pickles -- all from the produce we grew in the backyard. Reading "The New Midwestern Table" is a bit like coming home for me, but to a more modern updated version of "home cooking." In other words, these aren't exactly my mother's/grandmother's recipes, but they do throw a huge spotlight on the best that the midwest has to offer in terms of local ingredients and the melting pot of internatinoal influences contributed by early settlers. The first thing that struck me about this book: Amy Thielen can write! Seriously, you must read the introduction as well as each chapter and recipe intro if you want to get a real sense for what NEW midwestern cooking can be when in the hands of someone who totally understands its roots and who is also sufficiently well-versed in modern "technique" to create new variations/versions for today's palates. Ms. Thielen has a way with words and tells her story exquisitely. And the recipes? Creative, flavorful, solid. If you're looking for "quick and easy" or "5-ingredients or less," this is probably not the book for you. Not that there aren't some that come together fairly quickly -- but that's not the focus here. This is about seasonal ingredients available fresh, prepared in ways that highlight the flavors. Yes, some do take quite a lot of prep, and some of the ingredients can be a bit tricky to find (one of the soup recipes calls for boneless shoulder bear roast, which the author claims has " ... a flavor that can be described as falling somewhere between beef and pork, but maybe with a tumbler of port wine on the side— not unlike wild boar" -- beef can be substituted if bear is unavailable). My usual practice is to make 3 recipes from any cookbook that I review, and I followed that practice with this one. 1. Classic Beef Pot Roast with Pistachio Salt -- made with a well-marbled beef chuck roast, seared quickly on the stove top, then slow roasted on a bed of onions with garlic for awhile, then accompanied by carrots, turnips, celery, and cherry tomatoes to finish, all topped with a pistachio/parsley/garlic mixture (sort of like a gremolata). This is actually similar to a roast my mother made, but with a few more steps. The slow covered roasting produced a succulent tender juicy roast, with veggies that haven't been cooked to mush. I'll make this again, but I'll substitute parsnips for the turnips (I just like the flavor better). 2. Baked Apples with Sour Cherries, Rosemary, and Yogurt Whip -- This one wasn't difficult at all, and came together quickly. Apples stuffed with a mixture of dried sour cherries, butter, vanilla, brown sugar, and maple syrup. Rosemary, lemon juice and water goes into the pan with the apples, and you just bake them for a total of about an hour (there's some fiddling with them mid-bake to create a flavored glaze, but it's easy). Serve with the whipped yogurt (whipping cream whipped with sugar, then yogurt is mixed in and it's whipped again). This was wonderful!! Living in the Pacific NW, apples and cherries are standard fare up here, so this one is definitely a keeper. 3. Baked Chicken with Porcini Spice Rub -- the recipe calls for a whole skin-on bone-in chicken cut into 8 pieces; I used 4 breasts and 4 large thighs. This is a non-fussy very basic simple recipe -- chicken pieces rubbed with a mixture of spices and ground dried porcini mushrooms, rested for 20 minutes or so, then baked on a foil-lined baking sheet. The spice/mushroom rub makes this dish special: coriander, allspice, mustard seed, sage, and nutmeg with the pulverized earthiness of the mushrooms. Very tasty, indeed, and another keeper. Some of these recipes probably won't work in my kitchen, primarily due to the region-specific ingredients featured in some of them (I haven't found a Pacific NW source for walleye, for example, nor do I expect to). But enough of them will, and I look forward to trying more of these dishes later this year when more fresh produce is in season. But the book is worth having for the accompanying narrative -- it really is that good.

This is a satisfying, fat, real book about a woman who has both real culinary credentials and is a real north Minnesota homemaker, mom, wife and great chef. Forget her James Beard Award for this knowledgeable and original cookbook, forget the NY fancy restaurant chops, forget her television show and catering. Just read her memoir, ”Give a Girl a Knife,” or look at this cookbook, and you will understand immediately that Amy is as real as the little lake she lives on, the pies she bakes and the pickles she will willingly discuss at length. And she’s a great writer. I was on a chef tour this summer, reading at least 10 memoirs. Hers was, by far, the most natural, believable and mature. This cookbook is a perfect gift for anyone who loves to cook or loves the outdoors. I couldn’t admire Amy Thielen more.

I really love the book. As German it helped me a lot to re-discover and re-appreciate our german cooking traditions. Wasn't even aware how much we have. The recipes are great and seem to work out well. I do struggle a bit with the presentation of the meat recipes and the calf in the same part of the book. I eat meat myself but I miss some words of mindfulness related to our meat consumption.

The recipes are tailored to the Midwest. The book is heavy and printed on good quality paper. The writing is obviously done by someone with a passion for the written word. The pictures are gorgeous.

I grew up on this food, with a grandmother and mother who both knew how to cook. I'm so glad Ms. Thielen has written this book of well-loved dishes, and who knows how to make them just a notch better than I remember them. I'm making recipes out of her book right now, today. There are a few glitches in some of the recipes - I failed on the buttermilk rye bread because it didn't specifically say to punch it down a second time (I really need a detailed recipe to follow) - but I'm trying it again and I know it will work this time. And who knew (those of us who live outside MN) that authentic wild rice only takes half an hour! Thank you, Amy Thielen!

This cookbook is so refreshingly down to earth and educational. It's clear that this lady knows her stuff and she goes about her cooking with a minimum of fuss. Every recipe that I've tried so far has worked perfectly. I like the way that she focuses on local, regional food.

Love this book and her show..This is the real Pioneer Woman..I have already made recipes out of this book and they were fantastic