The Oxford Companion to Sugar and Sweets.
Edited by Darra
Goldstein. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015. ISBN: 978-0-19-931339-6.
[Hardback, 888 pages. [920 pages with introductory pages]; 157 images. 32 pages
of color plates. Index: pp. 831-888.]
I don’t often comment about the subject headings
chosen for reference books, but in the case of The Oxford Companion to Sugar and
Sweets, I’ll make an exception. The subject heading listed on the verso
of the title page reads: “1. Sweeteners- Encyclopedias.” Worldcat adds the
additional heading of “Sweeteners.” For the ebook edition, Worldcat also adds “TECHNOLOGY & ENGINEERING / Food
Science.” None of these subject headings adequately captures the essence of the
volume or does it justice.
The Companion is a massive encyclopedia devoted to sweets and items made of sugar. This is
not a cookbook; it does not contain recipes. It’s a reference volume dedicated
to providing informative entries. Think countries, regions, cane sugar, maple
sugar, beet sugar, cakes, candies, chocolates, cookies, bonbons, ice creams,
desserts, famous confections, famous confectioners and candy makers past and
present, pastries, subtleties, sugarplums, and spoons full of sugar. I’m not
kidding. Films and songs mentioning sweets, including Mary Poppins, are covered in separate appendixes along with another
pair of appendixes just for museums and famous pastry shops.
The
entries vary in length from a mere paragraph to several pages. References are
helpfully included at the end of the entries. As
one would expect, there is lots of information here, although I have
already noticed certain topics could have been expanded into earlier
historical material. The topic of “Icing” is one, for example, where there are
earlier sources than the ones cited in the entry. Overall, there are very good
entries and even great entries though on a number of interesting topics. Ivan
Day, C. Anne Wilson, Andrew Smith, and Laura Mason are among the 265 experts
who contributed material. The volume’s editor Professor Darra Goldstein was the
founding editor of the award winning Gastronomica and is presently the Willcox and Harriet Adsit Professor
of Russian at Williams College. She has done an excellent job.
While
The
Oxford Companion to Sugar and Sweets
is pretty marvelous, having a copy will not eliminate the need for The
Oxford Companion to Food or access to an online Oxford English Dictionary
or similar foreign language dictionaries for tracing terms and quotations.
There is a Kindle version of The
Oxford
Companion to Sugar and Sweets, which is also available now through
Amazon. I downloaded a copy of that version prior to the release of the
hardback and spent several hours reading sections. Dipping into it via the
electronic version has pluses and minuses. One can keyword search but since the
book is very long, it takes an extended while for the search to download. Fast Internet
is a plus in using the volume. You can click and search on highlighted terms
and move easily from entry to entry instead of turning entry to entry as in a
book. I have to say I prefer the hardback edition.
For my research, The Oxford Companion to Sugar and
Sweets is an essential reference text. I am not sure about recommending
that everyone else plunge in and drop $36 on the Kindle version or at least $44
on the hardback. It's currently priced at $65, so seek a discount. I don't know
how many bookstores will carry it, so it may be hard to see a copy prior to
purchase. Larger libraries should buy it but readers may have to nudge them.
All in all it's a really good
read and a reference source that readers should be aware of. So what should the
subject headings be? Well, how about Sugar, Sweets, Confections, Pastries, Food, etc.? They are all covered in this definitive companion guide. Highly recommended.
Announced publication was May 1.
Description:
Short Blog post and podcast about the book
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