Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I was one of the very first to review The Hunger Games. I loved the book, thought it one of the best I had seen for the Young Adult market in quite some while. Even way back in 2008 I was predicting that the Hunger Games series might just be the next big thing. So, I was delighted to see the recent release of the movie and was glad to have the opportunity to review Emily Ansara Baines The Unofficial Hunger Games Cookbook: From Lamb Stew to "Groosling" - More than 150 Recipes Inspired by The Hunger Games Trilogy. I cannot begin to tell you how dreadfully sad I am to have to write the review I'm about to put on "paper." At first glance, The Unofficial Hunger Games Cookbook seems like a brilliant and fairly well executed idea, though I must admit that I had questions about the use of the Hunger Games name, surely by now trademarked. In spots, the recipes are marvelous. In others, not so much. And while I certainly understand the idea behind including things like mountain goat and yucca, foraging for food is something that takes knowledge. Many - probably most - of the recipes that use foraged plant roots I would not use, even though I've been "picking wild" for more than a half a century. As I started taking a closer look at some of the recipes I started to notice some odd things. The recipe for Finnick And Annie's Wedding: White Wedding Cake, though it is a wedding cake indeed, is not a white wedding cake. White cakes do not contain any egg yolks, as those color the cake a golden color. This recipe contains 7 of them. I found the nearly identical recipe on a wedding site. More than a few of the cookie recipes have very small yields for the large amount of dough the recipes produce. Tigri's Fig Cookies are what are more usually called Italian Cuccidati, a Sicilian fig cookie commonly served at Christmas and for weddings. The directions that Baines gives are not complete - they fail to specify the size that each of the four portions of dough should be rolled to. The recipe also allows for about 4-5 times the amount of filling that a standard Cuccidati recipe making 3-4 dozen cookies calls for. Somehow, Baines only manages to get 2 dozen cookies. And then I came to the game recipes, which are quite frankly very problematic. Let me draw your attention to just one of them, though this is not the only problematic game recipe by a very long shot. In particular though, take a peek at the Banquet-Baked Mountain Goat with Artichokes, Tomatoes and Fresh Herbs on page 158. In the "Tips From Your Sponsor" Baines writes: "Mountain goat is a strong-flavored animal. If too old, its meat will be tough and stringy. Only cook goat when you have access to young meat, or brine the older meat prior to cooking. Either way, a baked stew of sorts is an excellent way to get good results from this goat. Serve with cooked rice." Now it so happens that over at Netplaces, Karen Eagle, author of The Everything Wild Game Cookbook: From Fowl And Fish to Rabbit And Venison--300 Recipes for Home-cooked Meals (Copyright 2006) has most of her book readily available online. It also so happens that Karen has a recipe titled "Baked Mountain Goat with Tomatoes, Artichokes and Fresh Herbs." And it just so happens that Karen's introduction to that recipe (which is virtually identical to the one in Unofficial Hunger Games) reads, copied and pasted directly from the recipe page at Netplaces: "Mountain goat is a strong-flavored animal. If too old, it's tough and stringy. So cook goat when you have access to young meat or brine the older meat prior to cooking. However, a baked stew of sorts is an excellent way to get good results from this animal. Serve with cooked rice." I'm not sure just exactly how Emily Baines managed to slip this past her publisher, but Grandma does not reward plagiarism and copyright violation. The only recommendation Grandma will make is for lessons in the meaning of copyright. Absolutely NOT Recommended.