| View Larger Image | Vegetables from Amaranth to Zucchini: The Essential Reference: 500 Recipes, 275 Photographs | Hardcoverby Elizabeth Schneider (Author)
| List Price: | $65.00 | | Price: | $43.87 | | You Save: | $21.13 (33%) | | | Available: | Usually ships in 24 hours |
| | Binding: | Hardcover | | Publisher: | William Morrow Cookbooks | | Edition: | 1st Edition | | Page Count: | 804 Pages | | Publication Date: | December 01, 2001 | | Sales Rank: | 68,972th |
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EDITORIAL REVIEWS |
Product Description
Vegetables from Amaranth to Zucchini: The Essential Reference is at once an encyclopedia, a produce market manual, and a treasure trove of recipes. With produce specialist Elizabeth Schneider as your guide, take a seed-to-table voyage with more than 350 vegetables, both exotic and common. Discover lively newcomers to the North American cornucopia and rediscover classic favorites in surprising new guises.In this timely reference, Elizabeth Schneider divulges the secrets of the vegetable kingdom, sharing a lifetime of scholarly sleuthing and culinary experience. In her capable hands, unfamiliar vegetables such as amaranth become as familiar as zucchini -- while zucchini turns out to be more intriguing than you ever imagined.Each encyclopedic entry includes a full-color identification photo, common and botanical names, and an engaging vegetable "biography" that distills the knowledge of hundreds of authorities in dozens of fields -- scientists, growers, produce distributors, and chefs among them.Practical sections describe availability, selection, storage, preparation, and basic general use. Finally, the author's fresh contemporary recipes reveal the essence of each vegetable and a culinary sensibility that food magazine and cookbook readers have trusted for thirty years. Each entry concludes with a special "Pros Propose" section -- spectacularly innovative recipes suggested by professional chefs.Vegetables from Amaranth to Zucchini: The Essential Reference is an indispensable resource for home cooks, food professionals, gardeners, information seekers, and anyone who simply enjoys good reading. |
Amazon.com Review
Elizabeth Schneider's Uncommon Fruits and Vegetables set a standard for exact yet lively investigation. Vegetables from Amaranth to Zucchini follows in her earlier book's footsteps to create a compelling guide to 350 common and exotic vegetables. This seed-to-table exploration does more, however. In addition to its usefulness as a reference work (vegetables are, for example, listed by their market, botanical, and common names), the book offers 500 up-to-the-minute recipes--such as Shredded Yellow Squash with Garlic Chives and Baked Sweet Potato-Apple Puree with Horseradish--valuable advice on seasonality and selection, multiple-method cooking instructions, and color photos of all the entries that make market identification a breeze. Interested in amaranth? Find its entry and discover, first, the magenta-veined plant's common aliases (among them, the Caribbean callaloo, the Indian bhaji, and the Korean namul); an engaging vegetable biography that distills information from many fields (for example, the Greeks thought amaranth immortal); information on selection, storage, and preparation (use the vegetable's tiniest leaves for salads; steam, braise, or sauté the larger "with garlic, shallots, tomato dice, and a touch of chilies"); and full-dress recipes (such as Garlicky Sauté of Amaranth and Tomatoes, Cuban Style). A final section, called Pros Propose, offers recipe sketches from cooking experts, like Paula Wolfert's Amaranth and Sheep's Milk Cheese. This lucid organizational scheme, common to all the entries, and Schneider's expert handling of it, promote a full yet relaxed familiarization with the selected vegetables. This is one of those few books that most cooks will want, as well as need, to own. --Arthur Boehm |
CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.5 based on 23 reviews)
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Wonderful purchase! by G. Carroll (Orange County, CA)  5 Stars
November 24, 2009
I was super happy with my purchase! I was very impressed with the wonderful condition of my book when it arrived. The seller provided me with a great experience! Five stars!!!
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Pemaculturists, take note! by MYOB (Radford, VA United States) 5 Stars
September 10, 2009
Other reviews have already (and justly) extolled many of the virtues of this book. I'd like to add that it makes an excellent companion volume to Eric Toensmeier's Perennial Vegetables: From Artichokes to Zuiki Taro, A Gardener's Guide to Over 100 Delicious and Easy to Grow Edibles. Vegetables covered in both books include the following: Arracacha, arrowhead, water celery, taro, yautia/malanga, chicory and dandelion, artichokes, sunchokes, scorzonera, Malabar spinach, breadfruit, nopales, water spinach, sweet potatoes, tindora, bitter melon, chayote, water chestnuts, yams, fiddleheads, nettles, cassava, asparagus, edible hibiscus, mallows, drumsticks, plantains, lotus roots, sorrels, oca, bamboo shoots, rhubarb, New Zealand spinach; and various brassicas including syletta, watercress, and Chinese broccoli. But where Toensmeier examines their value from a permaculturist's point of view as food crops, Schneider examines their value from a foodie's point of view as delicacies or just plain tasty vegetables. I found that this book actually made me more anxious to try growing many of them than Toensmeier's did, because it made them sound more worth eating!
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not your common veggies by Melo Meme (So Cal .... USA) 5 Stars
June 24, 2009
This covers all the veggies that you see in the store and have no idea what they are or how to cook. Nice explanation of the taste and origin of the veggies you have wondered about. Read some of it at Barns and Nobles but the price was so high got such a good deal at amazon.Vegetables from Amaranth to Zucchini: The Essential Reference: 500 Recipes, 275 Photographs
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Vegetables from Amaranth to Zucchini: The Essential Reference by J. Berger 5 Stars
January 11, 2009
I gave this as a gift this Holiday and WOW did it go over well. My friend loved it. I have another cookbook by this same writer that I use at least once a week for reference and recipes. I would select this cookbook for beginners through experienced cooks.
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one of my 3 most often used kitchen books by Mary (California) 5 Stars
November 29, 2007
This is a beautiful and functional and useful book. I refer to it at least once a week, sometimes more often. Most people will use this book in at least one of the following four ways:
1) coffee table book and conversation starter - this is the least valuable way to utilize such a brilliant tome but if food books appeal to your coffe table senses you can't go wrong with this one, the photographs are lovely
2) "what the heck did I just buy at the farmers market?" reference. I frequent farmers markets and sometimes I buy a lovely vegetable that I honestly don't know what to do with when I get it home. This book tells me how to clean, store, cook, and serve those farmers market goodies
3) "how the heck do I pick a good [enter vegetable here]?" reference. Sometimes the best squash is not always the one with the hardest shell. Can a perfectly good artichoke have brown spots? Should I select leeks with fat bulbs or slender bulbs? This book tells you how to make the best selection and what time of year is prime for each item, including varietals.
4) Should I bake or steam or boil or braise or roast or gril or...? This book tells you how the flavor and texture of your selected vegetable will differ based upon cooking technique.
Another reviewer indicated that this book does not cover common vegetables in some cases. That is correct. You won't find an entry for traditional carrots, but you will find several entries for non traditional carrots. You won't find green asparagus described (though it is referenced) but you will find white and purple asparagus entries. The author clearly indicates omissions and her reasoning is that even basic home cooks already have that knowledge. I can understand why some reviewers would omit a star for that but to be honest I use this book so often that it is still a five star product in my opinion.
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