Book picks similar to
American Cuisine: And How It Got This Way by Paul Freedman
food
history
non-fiction
nonfiction
The United States of Arugula: How We Became a Gourmet Nation
David Kamp - 2006
Kamp, a writer and editor for GQ and Vanity Fair, chronicles the amazing transformation from the overcooked vegetables and scary gelatin salads of yore to the current heyday of free-range chickens, extra-virgin olive oil, Whole Foods, Starbucks, and that breed of human known as the foodie.
Rice, Noodle, Fish: Deep Travels Through Japan's Food Culture
Matt Goulding - 2015
In this 5000-mile journey through the noodle shops, tempura temples, and teahouses of Japan, Matt Goulding, co-creator of the enormously popular Eat This, Not That! book series, navigates the intersection between food, history, and culture, creating one of the most ambitious and complete books ever written about Japanese culinary culture from the Western perspective.Written in the same evocative voice that drives the award-winning magazine Roads & Kingdoms, Rice, Noodle, Fish explores Japan's most intriguing culinary disciplines in seven key regions, from the kaiseki tradition of Kyoto and the sushi masters of Tokyo to the street food of Osaka and the ramen culture of Fukuoka. You won't find hotel recommendations or bus schedules; you will find a brilliant narrative that interweaves immersive food journalism with intimate portraits of the cities and the people who shape Japan's food culture.This is not your typical guidebook. Rice, Noodle, Fish is a rare blend of inspiration and information, perfect for the intrepid and armchair traveler alike. Combining literary storytelling, indispensable insider information, and world-class design and photography, the end result is the first ever guidebook for the new age of culinary tourism.
On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen
Harold McGee - 1984
Hailed by Time magazine as "a minor masterpiece" when it first appeared in 1984, On Food and Cooking is the bible to which food lovers and professional chefs worldwide turn for an understanding of where our foods come from, what exactly they're made of, and how cooking transforms them into something new and delicious. Now, for its twentieth anniversary, Harold McGee has prepared a new, fully revised and updated edition of On Food and Cooking. He has rewritten the text almost completely, expanded it by two-thirds, and commissioned more than 100 new illustrations. As compulsively readable and engaging as ever, the new On Food and Cooking provides countless eye-opening insights into food, its preparation, and its enjoyment.On Food and Cooking pioneered the translation of technical food science into cook-friendly kitchen science and helped give birth to the inventive culinary movement known as "molecular gastronomy." Though other books have now been written about kitchen science, On Food and Cooking remains unmatched in the accuracy, clarity, and thoroughness of its explanations, and the intriguing way in which it blends science with the historical evolution of foods and cooking techniques.Among the major themes addressed throughout this new edition are:Traditional and modern methods of food production and their influences on food qualityThe great diversity of methods by which people in different places and times have prepared the same ingredientsTips for selecting the best ingredients and preparing them successfullyThe particular substances that give foods their flavors and that give us pleasureOur evolving knowledge of the health benefits and risks of foodsOn Food and Cooking is an invaluable and monumental compendium of basic information about ingredients, cooking methods, and the pleasures of eating. It will delight and fascinate anyone who has ever cooked, savored, or wondered about food.
The Complete Idiot's Guide to Plant-Based Nutrition
Julieanna Hever - 2011
There are about one million vegans in the U.S. and about 50,000 new ones every year. A growing number of physicians advocate a completely plant-based diet for many of their patients who suffer from diabetes, heart disease, and cancer. In The Complete Idiot's Guide® to Plant-Based Nutrition, readers will find:? Where to get nutrients that others get from meat and dairy.? How to avoid the vegan pitfall of overfed but undernourished.? How to spot hidden animal ingredients in packaged foods.? Tips for eating at restaurants.? Special considerations for children and seniors.
Vegan At Times: 120+ Recipes for Every Day or Every So Often
Jessica Seinfeld - 2021
Her husband and her children aren’t, either. Instead of convincing you to become vegan or shaming you for eating meat, she simply wants to show you how easy it is to be a vegan, at times, by cooking flavorful, affordable, and robust plant-based meals whenever you want—whether that’s every day, once a week, or just once in a while.With her reassuring and accessible style, Jessica shows you step-by-step recipes for sweet and savory breakfasts, comforting and healthy meals for lunch and dinner, delicious snacks that can be whipped together quickly, and essential sauces and dressings—all tailored to home cooks. She also demonstrates how to create a basic vegan pantry filled with the essential items to keep in stock, explains what kitchen equipment you’ll want to have on hand, gives sample menus for combining recipes, and tells relatable stories from her adventures in vegan cooking with her family.
The Complete Mushroom Hunter, Revised: Illustrated Guide to Foraging, Harvesting, and Enjoying Wild Mushrooms - Including new sections on growing your own incredible edibles and off-season collecting
Gary Lincoff - 2010
Gathering edible wild food is a lovely way to forge a connection to the earth. Mushrooms are the ultimate local food source; they grow literally everywhere, from mountains and woodlands to urban and suburban parks to your own backyard.The Complete Mushroom Hunter, Revised is a new edition of Quarry's successful Complete Mushroom Hunter. It will enrich your understanding of the natural world and build an appreciation for an ancient, critically relevant, and useful body of knowledge. Amateur mycologists and mushroom enthusiasts will find this is a guidebook for their passion. Mushroom guru Gary Lincoff escorts you from the mushroom's earliest culinary awakening, through getting equipped for mushroom forays, to preparing and serving the fruits of the foray, wherever you live. Inside you'll find: A brief, but colorful history of mushroom hunting worldwide; how to get equipped for a mushroom foray; a completely illustrated guide to the common wild edible mushrooms and their poisonous look-alikes -- where to find them, how to identify them, and more; how to prepare and serve the fruits of your foray, plus more than 30 delicious recipes; plus, dozens of colorful, priceless anecdotes from living the mushroom lifestyle.
Bowls of Plenty: Recipes for Healthy and Delicious Whole-Grain Meals
Carolynn Carreño - 2017
From food blogs to Instagram, farm-to-table bistros to chain restaurants, "the bowl" has become part of our culinary vocabulary. And whole grains are not just for hippies and health nuts anymore! Hearty grains like quinoa, farro, millet, and spelt are replacing flour or corn tortillas, bread, pasta, white rice, and mashed potatoes as the base or vehicle for other, richer, more complex ingredients.BOWLS OF PLENTY brings grain bowls to the home cook, offering more than 75 recipes for hearty, grain-centric, one-dish meals that layer flavorful veggies and delicious sauces and vinaigrettes, with optional meats and dairy on a foundation of whole-grain staples. A mix sweet and savory breakfast bowls, salad bowls that will put an end to the sad desk lunch, flexible composed main dish bowls that work with all diets, and creative dessert bowls, BOWLS OF PLENTY is a modern handbook for healthy and delicious cooking at home.
Sweet Invention: A History of Dessert
Michael Krondl - 2011
Sweet Invention: A History of Dessert captures the stories of sweet makers past and present from India, the Middle East, Italy, France, Vienna, and the United States, as author Michael Krondl meets with confectioners around the globe, savoring and exploring the dessert icons of each tradition. Readers will be tantalized by the rich history of each region’s unforgettable desserts and tempted to try their own hand at a time-honored recipe. A fascinating and rewarding read for any lover of sugar, butter, and cream, Sweet Invention embraces the pleasures of dessert while unveiling the secular, metaphysical, and even sexual uses that societies have found for it.
The Secret History of Food: Strange but True Stories About the Origins of Everything We Eat
Matt Siegel - 2021
Is Italian olive oil really Italian, or are we dipping our bread in lamp oil? Why are we masochistically drawn to foods that can hurt us, like hot peppers? Far from being a classic American dish, is apple pie actually . . . English?“As a species, we’re hardwired to obsess over food,” Matt Siegel explains as he sets out “to uncover the hidden side of everything we put in our mouths.” Siegel also probes subjects ranging from the myths—and realities—of food as aphrodisiac, to how one of the rarest and most exotic spices in all the world (vanilla) became a synonym for uninspired sexual proclivities, to the role of food in fairy- and morality tales.
Everything Is Under Control: A Memoir with Recipes
Phyllis Grant - 2020
With sparse, affecting prose, and an unsparing eye toward her, and her environment's, darkest corners, Grant's story follows the sometimes smooth, sometimes jagged, always revealing contours of her life: from her days as a dancer struggling to find her place at Juilliard, to her experiences in and out of four-star kitchens in New York City, to falling in love with her future husband and leaving the city after 9/11 for California where her children are born. All the while, a sense of longing roils in each stage as she moves through the headspace of a young woman longing to be sustained by a city, to a mother now sustaining a family herself.Written with the raw transparency of a diarist, Everything Is Under Control is an unputdownable series of vignettes followed by tried-and-true recipes from Grant's table--a heartrending yet unsentimental portrait of the highs and lows of young adulthood, motherhood, and a life in the kitchen.
A History of English Food
Clarissa Dickson Wright - 2011
She looks at the shifting influences on the national diet as new ideas and ingredients have arrived, and as immigrant communities have made their contribution to the life of the country. She evokes lost worlds of open fires and ice houses, of constant pickling and preserving, and of manchet loaves and curly-coated pigs. And she tells the stories of the chefs, cookery book writers, gourmets and gluttons who have shaped public taste, from the salad-loving Catherine or Aragon to the foodies of today. Above all, she gives a vivid sense of what it was like to sit down to the meals of previous ages, whether an eighteenth-century labourer's breakfast or a twelve-course Victorian banquet or a lunch out during the Second World War.Insightful and entertaining by turns, this is a magnificent tour of nearly a thousand years of English cuisine, peppered with surprises and seasoned with Clarissa Dickson Wright's characteristic wit.
The Secret Lives of Baked Goods: Sweet Stories & Recipes for America's Favorite Desserts
Jessie Oleson Moore - 2013
Moore has put her sweet-sleuthing skills to work uncovering the fascinating histories and tastiest recipes for America's favorite sweets, including whoopee pies, chocolate chip cookies, Baked Alaska, and New York cheesecake. From romantic musings on how desserts got their names to sugar-fueled scandals, these classic recipes and photographs are guaranteed to offer food for thought and leave you with plenty of room for dessert.
The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science
J. Kenji López-Alt - 2015
Kenji López-Alt has pondered all these questions and more. In The Food Lab, Kenji focuses on the science behind beloved American dishes, delving into the interactions between heat, energy, and molecules that create great food. Kenji shows that often, conventional methods don’t work that well, and home cooks can achieve far better results using new—but simple—techniques. In hundreds of easy-to-make recipes with over 1,000 full-color images, you will find out how to make foolproof Hollandaise sauce in just two minutes, how to transform one simple tomato sauce into a half dozen dishes, how to make the crispiest, creamiest potato casserole ever conceived, and much more.
Happiness Is Baking: Cakes, Pies, Tarts, Muffins, Brownies, Cookies: Favorite Desserts from the Queen of Cake
Maida Heatter - 2019
Happiness is giving them away. And serving them, and eating them, talking about them, reading and writing about them, thinking about them, and sharing them with you." Maida Heatter is one of the most iconic and fondly remembered cookbook authors of all time. Her recipes, each a modern classic, are must-haves in every home baker's bag of tricks: her cookies, cakes, muffins, tarts, pies, and sweets of all kinds range from extravagantly special to the comforting and everyday. Her brown-sugary Budapest Coffee Cake, her minty Palm Beach Brownies, her sophisticated East 62nd Street Lemon Cake, and many other desserts have inspired legions of devotees.Happiness Is Baking reproduces Maida's best-loved recipes in a fully illustrated new edition with a foreword by Dorie Greenspan. Developed for foolproof baking by experienced cooks and novices alice, these recipes bear Maida's trademark warmth, no-nonsense style, and her promise that they will work every time.Happiness Is Baking is the perfect gift for anyone who loves baking--or who knows the happiness that comes from a delicious dessert.