Low-Fat Top Secret Recipes
Is there an audience for Todd Wilbur'sLow-Fat Top Secret Recipes, a collection of fat-reduced and make-it-yourself formulas for the likes of Screaming Yellow Zonkers? Judging from the success of Wilbur's previous cookbooks, which also provide favorite food-product recipes, the answer is you bet. This book is for those times when a chocolatey Oreo or gooey Entenmann's cinnamon roll--made at home--is just what the doctor ordered. The 75 or so recipes are divided into two sections: Low-Fat Top Secret Recipe Clones, which provides formulas for duplicating already low-fat foods such as Nabisco Honey Maid Grahams and Gardenburgers, and Low-Fat Top Secret Recipes Conversions, recipes for reduced-fat renderings of normally fatty foods like Wendy's Spicy Chicken Sandwich and McDonald's Egg McMuffin. These recipes reduce fat calories by half or more. The formulas produce food that is at least as credible as its ancestors and sometimes better. Readers should know, however, that many of the recipes require low-fat or ersatz food items, such as egg substitute, and that food coloring is sometimes called for. (Those Oreos require brown paste coloring to achieve their familiar hue.) Wilbur is fascinated by the ups and downs of the companies whose products he gives recipes for, and many of their head notes yield information such as, "In 1996, Nabisco built up its growing line of Snackwell's... with the introduction of low-fat snack bars...." This back-story is actually more interesting than not. With droll blueprint-style drawings of the foods, nutrition facts for each recipe, and various preparation tips, the book brings readers interested in reproducing their favorite store-bought foods very close to the "real thing."--Arthur Boehm