Local Flavors

First published in hardcover in 2002, Local Flavors was a book ahead of its time. Now, imported food scares and a countrywide infatuation with fresh, local, organic produce has caught up with this groundbreaking cookbook, available for the first time in paperback. Deborah Madison celebrates the glories of the farmers’ markets of America in a richly illustrated collection of seasonal recipes for a profusion of produce grown coast to coast. As more and more people shun industrially produced foods and instead choose to go local and organic, this is the ideal cookbook to capitalize on a major and growing trend. Local Flavors emphasizes seasonal, regional ingredients found in farmers’ markets and roadside farm stands and awakens the reader to the real joy of making a direct connection with the food we eat and the person who grows it. Deborah Madison’s 350 full-flavored recipes and accompanying menus include dishes as diverse as Pea and Spinach Soup with Coconut Milk; Rustic Onion Tart with Walnuts; Risotto with Sorrel; Mustard Greens Braised with Ginger, Cilantro, and Rice; Poached Chicken with Leeks and Salsa Verde; Soy Glazed Sweet Potatoes; Cherry Apricot Crisp; and Plum Kuchen with Crushed Walnut Topping. Covering markets around the country from Vermont to Hawaii, Deborah Madison reveals the astonishing range of produce and other foods available and the sheer pleasure of shopping for them. A celebration of farmers and their bounty, Local Flavors is a must-have cookbook for anyone who loves fresh, seasonal food simply and imaginatively prepared.

The neighborhoods that make up Chicago’s rich cultural landscape have been defined by the restaurants that anchor them. In Local Flavor, the popular food writer Jean Iversen chronicles eight beloved local eateries, from Chinatown on the South Side to Rogers Park in the far North, tracing the story of how they became neighborhood institutions. Iversen has meticulously gathered the tales, recipes, and cultural traditions that define Chicago’s culinary past and present. Rich with firsthand accounts from local restaurateurs, their families, long-time customers, and staff, Local Flavor is a community-driven look at Chicago through a gastronomical lens. Including recipes for popular dishes from each restaurant that readers can try at home, Local Flavor weaves together ethnography, family, and food history into a story that will enthrall both food and Chicago history lovers.

The James Beard Award–winning chef of Underbelly Hospitality, a champion of Houston’s diverse immigrant cooks—Vietnamese, Korean, Mexican, Indian, and more—shows you how to work with their flavors and cultures with respect and creativity. JAMES BEARD AWARD FINALIST Houston’s culinary reputation as a steakhouse town was put to rest by Chris Shepherd, the Robb Report’s Best Chef of the Year. A cook with insatiable curiosity, he’s trained not just in fine-dining restaurants but in Houston’s Korean grocery stores, Vietnamese noodle shops, Indian kitchens, and Chinese mom-and-pops. His food, incorporating elements of all these cuisines, tells the story of the city, and country, in which he lives. An advocate, not an appropriator, he asks his diners to go and visit the restaurants that have inspired him, and in this book he brings us along to meet, learn from, and cook with the people who have taught him. The recipes include signatures from his restaurant—favorites such as braised goat with Korean rice dumplings, or fried vegetables with caramelized fish sauce. The lessons go deeper than recipes: the book is about how to understand the pantries of different cuisines, how to taste and use these flavors in your own cooking. Organized around key ingredients like soy, dry spices, or chiles, the chapters function as master classes in using these seasonings to bring new flavors into your cooking and new life to flavors you already knew. But even beyond flavors and techniques, the book is about a bigger story: how Chris, a son of Oklahoma who looks like a football coach, came to be “adopted” by these immigrant cooks and families, how he learned to connect and share and truly cross cultures with a sense of generosity and respect, and how we can all learn to make not just better cooking, but a better community, one meal at a time.

Many of the world's economic ills - short-termism, compulsory growth pressure, cyclical recessions, unrelenting concentration of wealth, and erosion of social capital can be traced to our competitive money system, in which there is built-in economic scarcity and never enough money for people to pay off their debts. We need an economic system that is both cooperative and competitive, with each balancing and complimenting the other. Lietaer and Dunne tell how such a balanced system can be created and, in fact, how it is already being built in many places around the world. Individual citizens, entrepreneurs, businesses, communities, and governments are creating new cooperative money systems that link unused resources with unmet needs. Over the past 30 years there has been a tremendous growth of cooperative currencies from fewer than 100 in 1980 to over 4,000 today. But we need many more of them spread more consistently all over the globe. We also need more large-scale cooperative currencies. The emergent cooperative currency movement needs to grow up. Dodging the dogma of both left or right Rethinking Money provides the roadmap for this to happen.

A visual feast of the Midwest's homegrown bounty In this splendidly illustrated book, food writer and self-described farm groupie Janine MacLachlan embarks on a tour of seasonal markets and farmstands throughout the Midwest, sampling local flavors from Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. She conducts delicious research as she meets farmers, tastes their food, and explores how their businesses thrive in the face of an industrial food supply. She tells the stories of a pair of farmers growing specialty crops on a few acres of northern Michigan for just a few months out of the year, an Ohio cattle farm that has raised heritage beef since 1820, and a Minnesota farmer who tirelessly champions the Jimmy Nardello sweet Italian frying pepper. Along the way, she savors vibrant red carrots, slurpy peaches, vast quantities of specialty cheeses, and some of the tastiest pie to cross anyone's lips. Informed by debates about eating local, seasonal crops, organic farming, sanitation, and biodiversity, Farmers' Markets of the Heartland tantalizes with special recipes from farm-friendly chefs and dozens of luscious color photographs that will inspire you to harvest the homegrown flavors in your own neighborhood.

Autobiographical work telling the author's story through short chapters and recipes associated with those stories, together charting the author's development as artist, wife, mother, and culinary practitioner. "Barbara Shark is an artist and partner in Shark's Ink., a fine art printing and publishing company. She lives in Lyons, Colorado"--Back cover.

Primitive beers, country wines, herbal meads, natural sodas, and more "Baudar has elevated the concept of terroir into the realm of extreme beverages, both fermented and unfermented. His book brings to life the innovative quest of the Palaeolithic shaman/healer/brewer."—Patrick E. McGovern, author of Ancient Brews Fermentation fans and home brewers can rediscover “primitive” drinks and their unique flavors in The Wildcrafting Brewer. Wild-plant expert and forager Pascal Baudar’s first book, The New Wildcrafted Cuisine, opened up a whole new world of possibilities for readers wishing to explore and capture the flavors of their local terroir. The Wildcrafting Brewer does the same for fermented drinks. Baudar reveals both the underlying philosophy and the practical techniques for making your own delicious concoctions, including: Wild sodas Country wines Primitive herbal beers Meads Traditional ferments like tiswin and kvass. The book opens with a retrospective of plant-based brewing and ancient beers. The author then goes on to describe both hot and cold brewing methods and provides lots of interesting recipes; mugwort beer, horehound beer, and manzanita cider are just a few of the many drinks represented. Baudar is quick to point out that these recipes serve mainly as a touchstone for readers, who can then use the information and techniques he provides to create their own brews, using their own local ingredients. The Wildcrafting Brewer will attract herbalists, foragers, natural-foodies, and chefs alike with the author’s playful and relaxed philosophy. Readers will find themselves surprised by how easy making your own natural drinks can be, and will be inspired, again, by the abundance of nature all around them. "With gorgeous photos and clear technical details, this book will be a source of great inspiration."—Sandor Ellix Katz, author of The Art of Fermentation

This unique culinary history of America offers a fascinating look at our past and uses long-forgotten recipes to explain how eight flavors changed how we eat. The United States boasts a culturally and ethnically diverse population which makes for a continually changing culinary landscape. But a young historical gastronomist named Sarah Lohman discovered that American food is united by eight flavors: black pepper, vanilla, curry powder, chili powder, soy sauce, garlic, MSG, and Sriracha. In Eight Flavors, Lohman sets out to explore how these influential ingredients made their way to the American table. She begins in the archives, searching through economic, scientific, political, religious, and culinary records. She pores over cookbooks and manuscripts, dating back to the eighteenth century, through modern standards like How to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman. Lohman discovers when each of these eight flavors first appear in American kitchens—then she asks why. Eight Flavors introduces the explorers, merchants, botanists, farmers, writers, and chefs whose choices came to define the American palate. Lohman takes you on a journey through the past to tell us something about our present, and our future. We meet John Crowninshield a New England merchant who traveled to Sumatra in the 1790s in search of black pepper. And Edmond Albius, a twelve-year-old slave who lived on an island off the coast of Madagascar, who discovered the technique still used to pollinate vanilla orchids today. Weaving together original research, historical recipes, gorgeous illustrations and Lohman’s own adventures both in the kitchen and in the field, Eight Flavors is a delicious treat—ready to be devoured.

Explore the tropical flavors and rich culinary traditions of America’s island paradise. Puerto Rico, a land of gorgeous beaches and luxurious resorts, also boasts a rich culinary culture with a mix of influences: Spanish, African, Taíno (Native American), and French. For adventurous mainland cooks in pursuit of exotic flavors, this book offers exciting new territory, and for Puerto Rican descendants everywhere, it pays tribute to the beloved homeland. Jose Santaella presents foods that only a local would know: the tradition of lechón—spit-roasted suckling pig—in the mountains near the rainforest, or dumplings of mashed plantains with land crab hand-rolled in ramshackle shacks along the shore. Among the book’s more than one hundred recipes are classics like Salt Cod Fritters with Piqué and Fried Whole Snapper with Pineapple and Cilantro Salsa, as well as contemporary creations, such as Avocado and Papaya Salad and Curried Goat with Lime and Orange Rice. Cocina Tropical captures the flavors and spirit of this truly enchanting island.

With detailed recipes for ferments, infusions, spices, and other preparations Wild foods are increasingly popular, as evidenced by the number of new books about identifying plants and foraging ingredients, as well as those written by chefs about culinary creations that incorporate wild ingredients (Noma, Faviken, Quay, Manreza, et al.). The New Wildcrafted Cuisine, however, goes well beyond both of these genres to deeply explore the flavors of local terroir, combining the research and knowledge of plants and landscape that chefs often lack with the fascinating and innovative techniques of a master food preserver and self-described "culinary alchemist." Author Pascal Baudar views his home terrain of southern California (mountain, desert, chaparral, and seashore) as a culinary playground, full of wild plants and other edible and delicious foods (even insects) that once were gathered and used by native peoples but that have only recently begun to be re-explored and appreciated. For instance, he uses various barks to make smoked vinegars, and combines ants, plants, and insect sugar to brew primitive beers. Stems of aromatic plants are used to make skewers. Selected rocks become grinding stones, griddles, or plates. Even fallen leaves and other natural materials from the forest floor can be utilized to impart a truly local flavor to meats and vegetables, one that captures and expresses the essence of season and place. This beautifully photographed book offers up dozens of creative recipes and instructions for preparing a pantry full of preserved foods, including Pickled Acorns, White Sage-Lime Cider, Wild Kimchi Spice, Currant Capers, Infused Salts with Wild Herbs, Pine Needles Vinegar, and many more. And though the author's own palette of wild foods are mostly common to southern California, readers everywhere can apply Baudar's deep foraging wisdom and experience to explore their own bioregions and find an astonishing array of plants and other materials that can be used in their own kitchens. The New Wildcrafted Cuisine is an extraordinary book by a passionate and committed student of nature, one that will inspire both chefs and adventurous eaters to get creative with their own local landscapes.