The Book of Jook: Chinese Medicinal Porridges--A Healthy Alternative to the Typical Western Breakfast

The Book of Jook: Chinese Medicinal Porridges - A Healthy Alternative to the Typical Western Breakfast was a nice read. It is a very interesting book.This book is an introduction to the tradition of Chinese medicinal porridges - called jook in Cantonese and congee or porridge in English - can be a healthy alternative to the typical Western breakfast. Cooked in a crockpot overnight and combining specific grains, vegetables, meats, eggs, or various Chinese herbs, there are medicinal porridges for every type of ailment.Included are hundreds of herbal porridge recipes for both prevention and remedial purposes. This book is great for laypersons as well as professional readers.To the Chinese family, jook or congee is comfort food, and it is a traditional source of nourishment when one is sick with a cold to help clear the sinuses and to comfort your body by filling your stomach with easily digestible food while introducing water into your system at the same time. Jook or congee is a meal as well as a health benefit.It is served various ways with many different extras from meats to vegetables to whatever comes to your imagination. It is often served with different condiments and adds sprinkled on top or mixed within. Jook or congee is also very popularly eaten with a chinese donut, which is a fried dough bread, either dipped or cut into pieces and served on top.It is served for breakfast, for lunch or for dinner. It is also served late night as an easy to digest meal that comforts and keeps you warm as well.I definitely recommend this book. It has some nice recipes. It is paperback, and it contains 225 pages. The book is well written, and it is a good reference into the subject.Amazon sells it at a good price. If you have Amazon Prime, the 2-day Free shipping is very nice. The book also makes a very nice gift.

For a book that claims to be "A Healthy Alternative to the Typical Western Breakfast" of "Chinese Medicinal Porridges" I expected more practical recipes and I was very disappointed. However, it may pique your interests if you want recipes where you "cut open the deer kidneys" and/or are interested in "moistening" your internal organs! What a waste of $20.

I have been enormously grateful to Bob Flaws for decades now, and it's time to say so in public. As a writer on Chinese food I depend on him for serious translations of Chinese traditional nutrition into western terms, plus a great deal of information that I managed to miss in my own research. Flaws is truly unique in explaining all this to western readers.To say nothing of the fact that he's right--we all need a breakfast with more cleaning, purifying, and bland foods. My wife and I get Chinese congee breakfasts whenever possible. Otherwise, we depend on home-baked bread and fruit.On the whole, you'll have to find a Chinese drug store or restaurant to live from this book, but in fact you can put anything you want into jook. I've had everything from catfish to tomatoes in it. If it feels good, and especially if it's cleaning and de-wetting, go for it.Mainly, thanks to Bob Flaws for the best stuff in English on Chinese nutritional science--which was ahead of the west till vitamins were discovered. And some would say STILL ahead of the west.

If you are not familiar with Chinese terminology and healing concepts this is probably not the book for you. Otherwise, it has a lot of interesting ideas.

This book contains so much valuable foundational information about the Traditional Chinese Medicine eating philosophies, as well as lots of great recipes for congee. A must have for any student studying TCM, but also great for anyone enrolled in an acupuncture regimen and following the traditional eating principals!

This book was bought on a recommendation from a naturopath doctor in Seattle. Very informative and also chalked full of details of herbal remedies that can be created at home. Let it be known, however, that a lot of these herbs and roots can be extremely hard to come by, especially ones that are fresh.

This is by far one of the best Jook/Congee recipe books I have ever seen. Well done recipes and easy to follow. I will not be letting this one go!!

not sure yet about this book, looks as if it was really written with the professional in mind, though i'm hoping that there may be something in there for me to use, i haven't been thru all of it yet to be able to tell for sure. on the other hand, as the book suggests, it would be a nice resource to bring to your tcm doctor and ask them to recommend certain recipes for you.

This book is Ok. The first section, which talks about the place of congees in Chinese traditional life and medicine, is very brief. I would have liked more of this. The main part of the book is a list of recipes for therapeutic application of congees. This is good, but not so useful unless you have access to a wide range of Chinese herbs.

Great ideas