Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money
| AnyBook4Less.com | Order from a Major Online Bookstore |
|
| Home | Store List | FAQ | Contact Us | | ||
| Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money |
||
 |
Title: Zingerman's Guide to Good Eating: How to Choose the Best Bread, Cheeses, Olive Oil, Pasta, Chocolate, and Much More by Ari Weinzweig ISBN: 0-395-92616-5 Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Co Pub. Date: 14 November, 2003 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.83 (6 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Good eating
Comment: Nestled in one of the cooler parts of Ann Arbor, on a brick-covered road near some little shops and slightly peeling houses, is deli/restaurant Zingerman's, known for its amazingly high-quality food. Now in "Zingerman's Guide To Good Eating," Ari Weinzweig offers a glimpse into the best foods available.
"Guide" is half cookbook, half gourmet bible. Weinzweig offers some good recipes (like gazpacho with sherry vinegar, or grilled Tuscan pecorino cheese), but the core of this book is what goes into those. And it's enough to drive a devoted foodie insane -- olive oils, vinegars and oils; pasta and grains; meats; cheeses, and seasonings.
And Weinzweig doesn't skimp on the details either. Within every chapter, he describes the different kinds of... whatever he's talking about. For cheeses, he provides a buying guide, then the different kinds: Parmigiano-Reggiano, cheddar, mountain, blue, et cetera. For deli meat, it's salami, Serrano ham, prosciutto, and smoked salmon. As a bonus, he describes the history and making-of each product.
Warning: Do not read this book on an empty stomach. The descriptions of food will make you drool -- especially the people who have tasted Zingermans' food before. Even the less savory ideas (salmon anemia) can't kill the response this book will provoke. (And a certain feeling of confidence is inspired by the radio hosts and cookbook authors quoted on the back, as well as restauranteur Mario Batali of "Babbo")
A lot of food books can be condescending to the non-gourmet. But Weinzweig avoids that. His style is almost conversational, like having a chat with a gourmet chef. He talks about his own experiences, his own likes, and descriptions of his chats with people who know best. (Including a conversation that compares selecting prosciutto-pigs to dating)
So for those who can't experience Zingerman's itself, the "Zingerman's Guide To Good Eating" is a must-have -- both for recipes and info about fine food in general. Just don't read through on an empty stomach.
Rating: 5
Summary: must have
Comment: This is the book to have with you in your car at all times. that way you are never left standing in the isle of your local foodstore wondering which olive oil/balsamic/etc to buy. and its a great book just to read a chapter here and there in any order you'd like when you have 20-30 mins to spare.
Rating: 5
Summary: An Extra Virgin Reference of Superb Artisinal Advice
Comment: This delightfully informative guide from the owner, Ari Weinzweig, of the major Ann Arbor, Michigan delicatessen Zingerman's tells us just what the dedicated foodie needs to know about how to recognize and acquire good food products.
This is just another sign that over the last forty years, the range and quality of foodstuffs available in the United states has not only improved, it has actually, in some regards, become even better than the current state of affairs in Europe, where other reporters have said that rural food production is falling on hard times in France and Italy.
The first service this book performs is to make one aware that there is a wide range of quality in some very common ingredients and products, which one may easily take for, granted. Since I do a fair amount of bread baking, my favorite example is commercially available 'artisinal bread'. The difference in quality for a generically labeled 'Italian bread' between a loaf from a local commercial bakery or a local supermarket bakery and a loaf from a high quality upscale megamart bakery is dramatic for about 30 cents difference in price. The difference between the high quality megamart and the product from the La Brea bakery in Los Angles or the Sullivan Street bakery in Manhattan is somewhat less, but definitely measurable. The fact that I can get a superior artisinal bread from my local megamart is very satisfying, especially since the author has stated that the average shopper in Paris may have a harder time to find a high quality bread than I do.
The second service from this book is to give us criteria for distinguishing the best products from the rest of the pack. A requirement for making these distinctions is to taste the products. The corollary to this principle is that one should make a point of shopping at stores which offer the customer the opportunity to taste samples of the product. An alternative is to purchase a range of products and organize home taste testing sessions. The modest cost of the test products can be distributed across many different people by inviting friends to join in with the testing. Once this lesson is learned, it is important to know the right way to taste. As we probably learned in eleventh grade biology, the tongue can distinguish just four (or five, if you subscribe to some recent doctrines) different tastes, while the nose can distinguish hundreds of different fragrances. Thus, flavor is really made up of a combination of taste and smell, and when one senses a food, it should be done in a way, which will give the nose its share of the action. The author describes the best techniques for tasting for each product.
A third service is to make us aware of the great differences one may find in materials collected at different times of the year or in different regions. The difference in olive oil between oil producing regions is sometimes dramatic. This was brought home to me when I was buying olive oil from Luigi DePalo and I asked him to name the best brand in the house, and he said it depends on the region from which you want the oil. Estate produced Tuscan oil is greener and more peppery tasting, for example, than an equal quality estate oil from Apulia. It may be less well known, but similar regional and seasonal differences exist for coffee, tea, chocolate, and cheeses. With cheese, the most dramatic difference may be the time of year. The milk producing animals are eating grass in the summer and dried feed in the winter, and it all shows up in their milk.
These seasonal and geographic differences in quality are sometimes subtle. There are other differences of which the newbie may not be aware which may have a much more dramatic effect on one's cooking. It is important to know the differences between 'light oil', 'olive oil', 'virgin olive oil', and 'extra virgin olive oil' but it is also important to know the best olive oil season, the methods of extracting oil, and the effects on storage. The easiest way to simplify all of this for olive oils at least is to buy two different oils. One should be a high quality commercial brand such as Colavita, which should be used for all cooking. The second should be an estate-bottled oil used in salads or as a final dressing to food after cooking is done.
The last major feature of the book is the 100 recipes, which end each chapter. I would not buy this book for the recipes, but they are all worthy. The information on how to assess the quality of ingredients is more than worth the price of admission.
The value of the book will depend a lot on how much you already know. As a dedicated viewer of the Food Network and a constant reader on things culinary, much of the information in this book was not new to me. The fact that I have seen many of these facts stated elsewhere gives me the authority to say that Ari Weinzweig knows what he is talking about, as if the gaggle of testimonial blurbs on the back cover were not enough. The value of this book is that all this information about many different products has been gathered together in one place. If you are new to the world of fine food products, this book is worth its weight in truffles.The names, addresses, telephone numbers, and web sites of sources for great foods is the icing on the cake. The bibliography is a fitting garnish to a very informative book.
Highly recommended to all readers interested in eating and making better food.
 |
Title: The King Arthur Flour Baker's Companion: The All-Purpose Baking Cookbook by King Arthur Flour ISBN: 0881505811 Publisher: Countryman Pr Pub. Date: 25 September, 2003 List Price(USD): $35.00 |
 |
Title: The Slow Mediterranean Kitchen : Recipes for the Passionate Cook by Paula Wolfert ISBN: 0471262889 Publisher: John Wiley & Sons Pub. Date: 19 September, 2003 List Price(USD): $34.95 |
 |
Title: The Cook's Canon : 101 Classic Recipes Everyone Should Know by Raymond Sokolov ISBN: 0060083905 Publisher: HarperCollins Pub. Date: 21 October, 2003 List Price(USD): $25.95 |
 |
Title: It's All American Food: The Best Recipes for More Than 400 New American Classics by David Rosengarten ISBN: 0316053155 Publisher: Little Brown & Company Pub. Date: 13 October, 2003 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
 |
Title: The Kitchen Detective: A Culinary Sleuth Solves Common Cooking Mysteries With 150 Foolproof Recipes by Christopher Kimball ISBN: 0936184701 Publisher: America's Test Kitchen Pub. Date: August, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!
Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments
