With 400 entries and over 200 illustrations, plus stories about the ingredients used in every major Latin cuisine, this guidebook identifies and tells you how to use the vast array of herbs, chilies, fruits, sauces, meats, beans and prepared foods at your neighborhood mercado. A bonus section of the author's favorite Latin recipes will help you create delicious authentic dishes.

A food lover's guide to the best ingredients in the traditional foods of Mexico, Peru, Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela, Colombia, and the Caribbean Islands including Cuba, Puerto Rico & Jamaica.

A food lover's guide to all the best ingredients in the traditional foods of India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. Once upon a time we only had a few choices when it came to fine dining. There was American home-cooked, pretentious French cuisine, practical Italian, and Chinese takeout. These days, Indian restaurants are popping up everywhere, and for good reason. The food is amazing! But how can you replicate the Indian dining experience at home? There are thousands of Indian grocery stores to shop in, but what should you buy? How do you prepare it? That's where this Take It With You guide comes in. With 700 entries and over 200 illustrations, plus traditional stories and personal anecdotes about many of the ingredients unique to Indian cuisine, this guidebook identifies and tells you how to use the vast array of spices, rice, legumes, fruits, vegetables, and prepared foods at over 9,000 Indian grocery stores in America. A bonus section of the author's favorite recipes will help you create delicious, authentic dishes that will satisfy anyone's hunger and sense of adventure.

This book uses food as a lens through which to explore important matters of society and culture. In exploring why and how people eat around the globe, the text focuses on issues of health, conflict, struggle, contest, inequality, and power. Whether because of its necessity, pleasure, or ubiquity, the world of food (and its lore) proves endlessly fascinating to most people. The story of food is a narrative filled with both human striving and human suffering. However, many of today's diners are only dimly aware of the human price exacted for that comforting distance from the lived-world realities of food justice struggles. With attention to food issues ranging from local farming practices to global supply chains, this book examines how food’s history and geography remain inextricably linked to sociopolitical experiences of trauma connected with globalization, such as colonization, conquest, enslavement, and oppression. The main text is structured alphabetically around a set of 70 ingredients, from almonds to yeast. Each ingredient's story is accompanied by recipes. Along with the food profiles, the encyclopedia features sidebars. These are short discussions of topics of interest related to food, including automats, diners, victory gardens, and food at world’s fairs. This project also brings a social justice perspective to its content—weighing debates concerning food access, equity, insecurity, and politics.

"Essential for anyone who talks, eats, or thinks about food." —Bev Bennett, Chicago Sun-Times The New Food Lover's Companion is an indispensable resource for everyone from home cooks to culinary professionals. This widely praised and highly esteemed reference guide has been updated with new information to reflect the way we eat in today's world, taking into account our healthier lifestyles and more diverse palates, including: Over 500 new cultural listings, including Korean, Persian, and South American additions Definitions and explanations for cooking tools and techniques A microwave oven conversion chart An extensive breakdown of food labels and nutritional facts Suggestions for substituting recipe ingredients Among the myriad of foods and culinary subjects defined and explained are meat cuts, breads, pastas, and literally everything else related to good food and enjoyable dining—a veritable food bible for the novice home-cook, culinary student, or the self-proclaimed foodie. The New Food Lover's Companion is a reference guide—not a cookbook—but it includes hundreds of cooking tips plus an extensive bibliography of recommended cookbooks. More than 7,200 entries plus line art are included in this seminal work. "As thick and satisfying as a well-stuffed sandwich." —The New York Times

Based on B.E.S. popular and authoritative The New Food Lover's Companion, this enlarged and enhanced reference volume was written for discerning home chefs and everybody else who wants to become more knowledgeable about good food and elegant dining. This second edition has been updated with new information to reflect the way we eat in today's world. The authors have taken into account our healthier lifestyles and more diverse palates to include: More than 500 new listings, including entries relating to Indian and Southeast Asian ingredients, plus expanded coverage of South American, Hispanic, and Middle Eastern cuisines Updated information for hundreds of existing entries A blood alcohol concentration chart for men and women An extensive breakdown of food labels and nutritional facts Department of Agriculture recommendations for a 2,000 calorie per day food plan More than 7200 entries plus line art are included in this seminal work. Miniature glossaries are interspersed throughout the text. Sidebar features throughout the book offer quick tips on food purchases, as well as Fast Facts and advice on preparation, serving, and dining. Handy appendices cover many topics including suggestions for substituting recipe ingredients, a microwave oven conversion chart, recommended safe cooking temperatures for meats and fish, and much more! The deluxe hardcover binding with dust jacket includes a ribbon place marker and golden-tipped page edges, making this gorgeous book as much a showpiece as it is an indispensable reference.

How many otherwise well-educated readers know that the familiar orange carrot was once a novelty? It is a little more than 400 years old. Domesticated in Afghanistan in 900 AD, the purple carrot, in fact, was the dominant variety until Dutch gardeners bred the young upstart in the seventeenth century. After surveying paintings from this era in the Louvre and other museums, Dutch agronomist Otto Banga discovered this stunning transformation. The story of the carrot is just one of the hidden tales this book recounts. Through portraits of a wide range of foods we eat and love, from artichokes to strawberries, The Carrot Purple traces the path of foods from obscurity to familiarity. Joel Denker explores how these edible plants were, in diverse settings, invested with new meaning. They acquired not only culinary significance but also ceremonial, medicinal, and economic importance. Foods were variously savored, revered, and reviled. This entertaining history will enhance the reader’s appreciation of a wide array of foods we take for granted. From the carrot to the cabbage, from cinnamon to coffee, from the peanut to the pistachio, the plants, beans, nuts, and spices we eat have little-known stories that are unearthed and served here with relish.