Carolyn Phillips

Food writer

This is the book that first gave us such terms “stir fry” and “pot sticker,” as well as the concept of umami (which she referred to here correctly as hsien). What this means is that even if her book had little else to offer, we would still have been in her debt. But How to Cook is, in fact, a marvelous introduction to Chinese gastronomy at a time when bean sprouts came in cans and chop suey was all the rage.

Anne Mendelson

Author and editor