The Berry Bible : With 175 Recipes Using Cultivated and Wild, Fresh and Frozen Berries

Rating:
Summary: Key To Using This Good-For-You Food
Review: I have always been a devotee of berries out of hand, but because I love them so much they rarely survive long enough to make it into my cooking. The Berry Bible may change that. If you want erudition on the berry world, look no further. The health benefits of berries take center stage, and then, straight on, "The A-To-Z Berry Encyclopedia" covers this planet's offerings, from scientific nomenclature to where each berry variety is grown commercially, to picking and storage notes. The color insert of photos of berry varieties is meticulous. The recipe sections--the bulk of the book--are well organized and clearly written. There's an excellent section on "Putting Berries By" for those of you with extra berries you don't want to gobble up just yet; preserves and jellies are covered as you'd expect, but you can also try your hand at "Raspberry Pastilles" if candy-making inspires you. The book has something for everyone, but above all, it treats berries with reverence. It is as complete as any book that claims to be a "Bible" should be.

Food writer Elliot Essman's other reviews and food articles are available at www.stylegourmet.com

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Summary: Tremendously Useful Book on Very Important Food
Review: Thirty-five years ago 'The Berry Bible' by Janie Hibler may have attracted a place in a relatively small market of hippies, vegetarians, and Pacific Northwest berry boosters. Today, I suspect the book will and should attract a lot more attention with the discovery and publicizing of the health benefits of all berries, specifically cranberries and blueberries.

Even though I easily qualify as a 'cookbook collector', I have never given much thought to what constitutes a good book for a cookbook collection, as my primary objective in acquiring cookbooks is to review them. But, this book easily qualifies as a paradigm for an excellent member of a cookbook collection. The two most interesting types of volumes in cookbook collections, I think, would be books on specific regions such as Provence, Tuscany, Mexico, and The Philippines and books on specific ingredients such as potatoes, duck, salmon, and eggs.

So, once we start collecting books on ingredients, what should they include? The most obvious answer is recipes. For these, a book on berries has much more to offer than a book on eggs or potatoes since, aside from the relatively small variations between starchy and waxy potatoes, there is not much to tell about how to make the best use of different varieties. There is also not much room to capitalize on recipes that can serve many purposes by being a stage for a wide variety of color, species, and cultivar of product. A good berry recipe can give you recipes for muffin, scone, tart, coulis, or smoothie for blackberries, raspberries, and mulberries in one fell swoop. To this end, the book contains recipes for:

Coolers, Cocktails, Smoothies, and other Drinks
Breads
Soups and Salads
Main Courses
Sauces
Putting Berries By (jams, jellies, and preserves)
Ice Creams, Sorbets, and Other Frozen Treats
Pies, Tarts, Cobblers, and Such
Cakes
Pastries, Puddings, and Other Sweet Treats

If the book did no more than this, it would be worth its reasonable $30 list price, but it does do much more.

The intellectually most attractive feature of the book is 'The A-to-Z Berry Encyclopedia'. It is a revelation to see how widely dispersed in the plant kingdom the main types of berries are, and yet, how closely related other berries with distinct names actually are. I was really surprised to discover that the boysenberry is not only related to the blackberry, it IS a blackberry, simply a specially named humanly developed cultivar of naturally occurring blackberries. Another interesting aspect is distinction between two or three different species with the same common name. Both blueberries and cranberries have lowbush and highbush varieties with markedly different geographic ranges and different commercial importance. The blueberry in your local megamart will almost invariably be the highbush species, unless you happen to live in northern New England, where you may have access to Maine lowbush blueberries. Those little blue beauties you see being gathered in Maine on the Food Network are not the same as what you see in your 'Super Fresh' produce department.

All this babble about species and cultivars has an important message for you, the consumer. If you want your local market to carry good stuff, the author recommends you find out from what cultivar a good batch of berries was picked, and ask for those berries in preference to inferior berries laid out on other occasions.

The berry encyclopedia has much other useful and interesting information. The common name is useful if you happen to be reading foreign cookbooks, even those written in English, and run across an unusual name. The scientific classification shows who is related to whom. It turns out that many berries, especially the blackberry and raspberry clans are closely related to roses. Figure they had to get those thorns from someone in their family. The habitat and distribution section will give you a really good idea of which species and cultivars you may find in a true 'local sources' farmers market. The history is interesting, if for nothing else than to show that berry fruits, barks, and leaves have been used as medicines since the time the Greeks started writing about their tummy aches. 'Where They Are Grown Commercially' will give you a good idea of how fresh your megamart produce may be, if it is in season locally. 'How to Pick' is essential if you are playing hunter-gatherer. The most common advice is to pick berries in the early morning, before the sun has warmed them up. 'How To Buy' is for the us urbanites who do our gathering at SuperFresh. The more important types of berries such as blackberries and raspberries have a sidebar describing the various commercially available varieties.

The book ends with a list of web sites I truly believe you would not find by yourself. Most are of commercial booster groups and academic or state organizations dedicated to studying berry culture.

The very last section is an excellent little bibliography. You have to love a book that cites both Elizabeth David and the Ukrainian Women's Association of Canada, with a stop at 'Leaves in Myth, Magic, and Medicine' along the way.

This is my kind of book. Even if you never want to but blackberries in your barbecue sauce or abandon your Bernard Clayton book on breadmaking, this book will reward you. If it does not, you should find a way to make berries a more important part of your life. They are that important nutroceutically. There, the book will even expand your vocabulary.

Highly recommended for understanding, buying, and using berries for enjoyment and health.

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Summary: A Berry Beautiful Book!
Review: This beautiful book has everything going for it and tells you everything you ever wanted or needed to know about berries. Ms. Hibler discusses in great detail 35 or 40 berries-- many of which I was not familiar with-- along with color photographs of twice that many. About each berry she discusses their common names, scientific classification, habitat, history, where they are grown commercially, how to pick them, how to buy them, how to store them, along with notes for the cook. On cranberries she tells the cook: "Think of them as the lemons of the berry world. Their tartness acts as a flavor enhancer when they are mixed with other fruits or berries, bringing out the best in both." On blueberries: "They are good mixed with other fruits and nuts, especially almonds."

In the author's introduction she discusses the current problems consumers face in the market. Although berries are now available the year round, we have sacrificed quality for quantity. (Do you ever wonder how growers get those tasteless strawberries bigger than a baby's fist?) She points out that many berries are picked while green and will never taste right when they do ripen. She further states that if we are willing to pay more for good berries for a shorter length of time in the market, that the sellers will do what is necessary to sell berries. But it is left up to the consumer to alleviate the problem.

Ms. Hibler covers utensils, cream, dried berries, washing berries, etc., in a chapter she calls "Berry Basics." Then the recipes follow. The author says she has been collecting berry recipes for years; there are 175 here, according to the book cover: drinks, breads, soups and salads, main courses, sauces, preserving berries, ice cream and other frozen treats, pies, tarts, cobblers, cakes, pastries and puddings. What is so amazing about these recipes is that with the exception of strawberry shortcake, we don't see the ones often repeated in previously published cookbooks: blueberry muffins, berry cheesecakes, cranberry bread, etc. (The strawberry shortcake is from the 1963 MCCALL'S COOKBOOK. Ms. Hibler says it is the best ever and recommends adding blueberries for a patriotic recipe for July 4.) While I'm a basic blueberry, blackberry, raspberry and strawberry person, if your tastes go to the exotic, both in berry and recipe, you won't be disappointed. Try Mahaw Jelly or Marionberry Streusel Tart, for example. Some of the recipes that jumped out at me that I want to try are Madame Rose Blanc's Creme de Cassis, (so we can make wonderful kirs) Fozen Srawberry Yourt, Fresh Raspberry Tart, and Lemon Curd Cake.

Two final notes: Ms. Hibler reminds us that eating berries is good for our health and gives us a great quote about cookbooks from Joseph Conrad: "Its object [a cookbook] can conceivably be no other than to increase the happiness of mankind." Certainly that can be said of THE BERRY BIBLE, destined to become the book on berries by which others will be judged.