Working Chef's Cookbook for Natural Whole Foods

Rating:
Summary: Professional Chef's Guide to Vegetarian Cooking
Review: This book is a compendium of information, charts, and recipes for the professional chef of a natural foods restaurant. Nevertheless, it could also be useful for the average home cook. The book begins with several chapters describing natural foods. In chapter 1, we learn why natural foods are preferable. Chapter 2 covers economic advantages for natural food restaurant chefs and health advantages for the consumer. Chapter 3 covers diet recommendations for natural foods and meal planning. It also covers seasonal menu suggestions that take into account when vegetables are at their prime. Chapter 4 contains recommendations for foods to eat for special occasions or effects (meetings or romance, for instance). Chapter 5 considers the philosophy of eating natural foods. Chapter 6 is comprised of useful charts covering food safety, kitchen math, flavor combinations, garnishes, stocking lists, and nutritional information. Chapter 7 provides detailed recommendations for purchasing, storing, and preparing different kinds of fruits and vegetables, as well charts summarizing yields, seasonal availability, and spicing. It is organized by type of food, starting with fruits, then sauces, nuts and seeds, oils, and sea vegetables. Chapter 8 is a glossary of culinary terms. Chapter 9 is an excursus on flavor. The remaining 2/3 of the book contains recipes. The book includes a recipe index by category and an alphabetical recipe index, but there is no subject index.

The recipes are designed for use either at home or in a restaurant. Each recipe is printed in 2 columns across the page. In the left column are the ingredients and amounts for a home-sized dish, followed by a blank column so that the reader can multiple the ingredients for a larger yield. On the right are the instructions presented in list-form in very concise language. There are no pictures.

I found the detailed information about ingredients quite interesting, and the book answered some long-standing questions I had concerning food preparation. But then again, there are some internal inconsistencies that left me confused, such as on p. 108, Blackman tells us "for bread, use hard red spring wheat", and then on p. 159 he tells us that bread flour "is made from hard winter wheat." So which wheat berries do I need to buy for my bread, hard spring wheat or hard winter wheat, or does it matter? In any case, the book includes a large variety of recipes and plenty of suggestions for customizing them. Professional chefs who are just getting started with natural foods, or new owners of natural foods restaurants may find parts of this book quite useful, and so might cooks at home.