Anya von Bremzen has vobla-rock-hard, salt-cured dried Caspian roach fish. Lovers of vobla risk breaking a tooth or puncturing a gum on the once-popular snack, but for Anya it's transporting. Like kotleti (Soviet burgers) or the festive Salat Olivier, it summons up the complex, bittersweet flavors of life in that vanished Atlantis called the USSR. There, born in 1963 in a Kafkaesque communal apartment where eighteen families shared one kitchen, Anya grew up singing odes to Lenin, black-marketeering Juicy Fruit gum at her school, and, like most Soviet citizens, longing for a taste of the mythical West. It was a life by turns absurd, drab, naively joyous, melancholy-and, finally, intolerable to her anti-Soviet mother. When she was ten, the two of them fled the political repression of Brezhnev-era Russia, arriving in Philadelphia with no winter coats and no right of return.These days Anya lives in two parallel food universes: one in which she writes about four-star restaurants, the other in which a simple banana-a once a year treat back in the USSR-still holds an almost talismanic sway over her psyche. To make sense of that past, she and her mother decided to eat and cook their way through seven decades of the Soviet experience. Through the meals she and her mother re-create, Anya tells the story of three generations-her grandparents', her mother's, and her own. Her family's stories are embedded in a larger historical epic: of Lenin's bloody grain requisitioning, World War II hunger and survival, Stalin's table manners, Khrushchev's kitchen debates, Gorbachev's anti-alcohol policies, and the ultimate collapse of the USSR. And all of it is bound together by Anya's sardonic wit, passionate nostalgia, and piercing observations.This is that rare book that stirs our souls and our senses.

    As if you were standing by her side in the kitchen, Aliza offers a thorough course on the art of making pasta, from selecting ingredients and mastering different types of doughs to making a range of classic and creative shapes and flavors. This foundation combined with helpful tips from her many years of experience and bits of history on pasta traditions in Italy and around the world make this the only pasta-making book you’ll need.  Making Artisan Pasta features:Recipes for pasta doughs made completely from scratch, with delicious ingredients including buckwheat and whole wheat flour, roasted red pepper, asparagus, squash, porcini mushroom, and even squid ink and chocolateFully illustrated step-by-step instructions for rolling, shaping, and stuffing dough for gnocchi, lasagna, cannelloni, pappardelle, tagliatelle, ravioli, and dozens of other styles of pastaDetailed instructions on how to make the ultimate in pasta: hand-stretched doughChinese pot stickers, Polish pierogi, Turkish manti, and other delectable pastas from beyond its traditional Italian bordersArtisan tips to help anyone, from novice to experienced, make unforgettable pastaMaking Artisan Pasta brings to you the satisfying pleasure of working with your hands using simple tools to create fresh artisan pasta to share with your family and friends.

    . . and one of nature’s last truly wild foods: the uncultivated, uncontrollable mushroom.Within the dark corners of America’s forests grow culinary treasures. Chefs pay top dollar to showcase these elusive and beguiling ingredients on their menus. Whether dressing up a filet mignon with smoky morels or shaving luxurious white truffles over pasta, the most elegant restaurants across the country now feature an abundance of wild mushrooms. The mushroom hunters, by contrast, are a rough lot. They live in the wilderness and move with the seasons. Motivated by Gold Rush desires, they haul improbable quantities of fungi from the woods for cash. Langdon Cook embeds himself in this shadowy subculture, reporting from both rural fringes and big-city eateries with the flair of a novelist, uncovering along the way what might be the last gasp of frontier-style capitalism. Meet Doug, an ex-logger and crabber—now an itinerant mushroom picker trying to pay his bills and stay out of trouble; and Jeremy, a former cook turned wild food entrepreneur, crisscrossing the continent to build a business amid cutthroat competition; their friend Matt, an up-and-coming chef whose kitchen alchemy is turning heads; and the woman who inspires them all. Rich with the science and lore of edible fungi—from seductive chanterelles to exotic porcini—The Mushroom Hunters is equal parts gonzo travelogue and culinary history lesson, a rollicking, character-driven tour through a world that is by turns secretive, dangerous, and tragically American.

    How can something she has eaten readily in China seem grotesque in England? The question lingers over this "autobiographical food-and-travel classic" (Publishers Weekly).

    Today there are over 40,000 Chinese restaurants across the United States--by far the most plentiful among all our ethnic eateries. Now, in Chop Suey Andrew Coeprovides the authoritative history of the American infatuation with Chinese food, telling its fascinating story for the first time.It's a tale that moves from curiosity to disgust and then desire. From China, Coe's story travels to the American West, where Chinese immigrants drawn by the 1848 Gold Rush struggled against racism and culinary prejudice but still established restaurants and farms and imported an array of Asianingredients. He traces the Chinese migration to the East Coast, highlighting that crucial moment when New York Bohemians discovered Chinese cuisine--and for better or worse, chop suey. Along the way, Coe shows how the peasant food of an obscure part of China came to dominate Chinese-Americanrestaurants; unravels the truth of chop suey's origins; reveals why American Jews fell in love with egg rolls and chow mein; shows how President Nixon's 1972 trip to China opened our palates to a new range of cuisine; and explains why we still can't get dishes like those served in Beijing orShanghai. The book also explores how American tastes have been shaped by our relationship with the outside world, and how we've relentlessly changed foreign foods to adapt to them our own deep-down conservative culinary preferences.Andrew Coe's Chop Suey: A Cultural History of Chinese Food in the United States is a fascinating tour of America's centuries-long appetite for Chinese food. Always illuminating, often exploding long-held culinary myths, this book opens a new window into defining what is American cuisine.

    Corn transformed the way the entire world eats, providing a hardy, inexpensive alternative to rice or wheat and cheap fodder for livestock and finding its way into everything from explosives to embalming fluid.Betty Fussell has given us a true American saga, interweaving the histories of the indigenous peoples who first cultivated the grain and the European conquerors who appropriated and propagated it around the globe. She explores corn's roles as food, fetish, crop, and commodity to those who have planted, consumed, worshiped, processed, and profited from it for seven centuries.Now available only from the University of New Mexico Press, The Story of Corn, is the winner of a Julia Child Cookbook Award from the International Association of Culinary Professionals.Written in a lively and nontechnical style.--Library JournalFussell has clearly done a good deal of research and a lot of traveling--peering over a precipice at Machu Picchu, descending into a restored ceremonial kiva of the Anasazi people in New Mexico, visiting the sole surviving corn palace from the Midwest boosters--glory days of a century ago.--Kirkus Reviews

    A true tale of beauty and obsession, smugglers and scientists, and nature’s most enigmatic creature.

    In The Course of History Struan Stevenson brings to life ten such moments, exploring the personalities, the issues and of course the food which helped shape the course of history.From the claret consumed on the eve of the Battle of Culloden, through the dinners which decided the fates of George Washington, Archduke Ferdinand and Adolf Hitler, to the diplomatic feasts that decided future relations with Russia, China and the Middle East, each chapter covers every detail, character, decision and morsel which decided the course of history.

    So in March 2001 he opened a new restaurant, Craft, that offered diners simple, soulful dishes centered around single ingredients that went on to shake up many people's ideas of what "restaurant food" should be like.Craft of Cooking leads you through Colicchio's thought process in choosing raw materials--like what to look for in fresh fish, or how to choose the perfect mushroom--to show that good food is available to anyone with access to a good supermarket, farm stand, or gourmet grocery. The book also features "Day-in-the-Life-of-Craft" portraits, which offer a fascinating, behind-the-scenes glimpse at areas of the restaurant beyond the dining room. These segments allow you to peer into the fast-paced prep kitchen, to witness the high drama of reservations, and to get a taste of the humor and empathy necessary to serve New York's colorful visitors and foodies.Using Tom's straightforward and friendly voice, Craft of Cooking offers recipes suited to any purpose--from a quick family meal to a festive dinner party for twelve.

    With recipes ranging from traditional apple pies and crisps to unexpected surprises like Ground Lamb Kebabs with Apple Mint Raita, this new edition of the best-selling classic has been completely revised and redesigned to feature more than 30 new apple-themed goodies. With plenty of vegan and gluten-free options, you’ll be cooking apple-based dishes that you can enjoy with all of your friends.

    Plus, he completely refreshed the tasting section with flavor profiles that also discuss winemaking; created a new Best of the Best chapter; and included more than 20 smart phone tags throughout the book that link to videos of Kevin talking about wine. As always, the book offers Wine Basics, Tasting Wine, Matching Wine and Food, Frequently Asked Questions About Wine, and a Selected Glossary. Zraly goes region-by-region, with the wines organized from simple to complex--allowing readers who follow Kevin's order to experience the finest wines and a wide diversity of tastes, styles, regions, and countries. More than ever, this is clearly the wine guide against which all others are judged.

    Now, in Baking Chez Moi, she explores the fascinating world of French desserts, bringing together a charmingly uncomplicated mix of contemporary recipes, including original creations based on traditional and regional specialties, and drawing on seasonal ingredients, market visits, and her travels throughout the country.Like the surprisingly easy chocolate loaf cake speckled with cubes of dark chocolate that have been melted, salted, and frozen, which she adapted from a French chef’s recipe, or the boozy, slow-roasted pineapple, a five-ingredient cinch that she got from her hairdresser, these recipes show the French knack for elegant simplicity. In fact, many are so radically easy that they defy our preconceptions: crackle-topped cream puffs, which are all the rage in Paris; custardy apple squares from Normandy; and an unbaked confection of corn flakes, dried cherries, almonds, and coconut that nearly every French woman knows. Whether it’s classic lemon-glazed madeleines, a silky caramel tart, or “Les Whoopie Pies,” Dorie puts her own creative spin on each dish, guiding us with the friendly, reassuring directions that have won her legions of ardent fans.

    But in every age and in every place drunkenness is a little bit different. It can be religious, it can be sexual, it can be the duty of kings or the relief of peasants. It can be an offering to the ancestors, or a way of marking the end of a day's work. It can send you to sleep, or send you into battle.A Short History of Drunkenness traces humankind's love affair with booze from our primate ancestors through to Prohibition, answering every possible question along the way: What did people drink? How much? Who did the drinking? Of the many possible reasons, why? On the way, learn about the Neolithic Shamans, who drank to communicate with the spirit world (no pun intended), marvel at how Greeks got giddy and Romans got rat-arsed, and find out how bars in the Wild West were never quite like in the movies.This is a history of the world at its inebriated best.

    Traces the history of sugar production and consumption, examines its relationship with slavery, class ambitions, and industrialization, and describes sugar's impact on modern diet and eating habits.

    The author uses two of his Midwestern hometown grocery chains, Heinen's and Fazio's, and his memories of his father's love of food and grocery shopping as the foundation for this engaging narrative. While he notes that many other writers have covered the history of the grocery store, the broken industrial food production system, and the nutritional benefits of various foods, Ruhlman delivers -a reported reflection on the grocery store in America,