A perfect leek from France. Flavorful zucchini from Italy. An infamous potato from Ireland, and a humble lentil from Ethiopia. 100 Vegetables offers a veritable cornucopia of vegetables and stories from around the world--from Argentina to Zimbabwe, from Australia to the United States. William Woys Weaver--veggie connoisseur, gardener, and historian--guides us through a range of peppers, potatoes, peas, gourds, onions, tomatoes, greens, and a whole lot more. Not every carrot is the same. All beans aren't equal. Take the Petaluma Gold Rush bean, a rugged legume, grown for over 150 years and brought to California by an American whaler from Peru. Or the violet carrot, which the Greeks brought back from India following the conquests of Alexander the Great. Mixing history, culinary suggestions, practical information, and personal anecdotes, Weaver introduces us to unusual heirloom vegetables as well as to common favorites. He provides answers to general questions, such as the difference between a yam and a sweet potato, and presents lively portraits of one hundred vegetable varieties, which he's grown and harvested in his own kitchen garden. Organized alphabetically by common name, 100 Vegetables includes beautifully detailed drawings throughout and a helpful appendix of seed resources.

Both gardeners and gourmet cooks will relish this luscious volume, written by leading gardeners, growers, and chefs. "To kickstart your vision seek out a copy of "Gourmet Vegetables," one of the garden's excellent series of compact garden handbooks. Top garden writers contribute articles on choosing, growing and using such culinary delights as mesclun, old-fashioned 'Silver Queen' white corn and even shiitake mushrooms. There are a smattering of recipes to whet your appetite."--"Chicago Tribune. ""Tells what you need to know to enjoy...vegetables seldom seen in supermarkets."--"Gardener."

Growing your own vegetables has never looked, or tasted, so good. Are heirloom vegetables more difficult to grow than conventional hybrids? The Beginner's Guide to Growing Heirloom Vegetables debunks this myth by highlighting the 100 heirloom vegetables that are the easiest to grow and the tastiest to eat. Marie Iannotti makes it simple for beginning gardeners to jump on the heirloom trend by presenting an edited list based on years of gardening trial and error. Her plant criteria is threefold: The 100 plants must be amazing to eat, bring something unique to the table, and—most importantly—they have to be unfussy and easy to grow. Her list includes garden favorites like the meaty and mellow 'Lacinato' Kale, the underused and earthy 'Turkish Orange' Eggplant, and the unexpected sweetness of 'Apollo' Arugula.

A garden of delight-and healthy, economical eating. In The Complete Idiot's Guide® to Heirloom Vegetables, readers will learn the rewards of growing heirlooms; find hundreds of descriptions and histories of a variety of available vegetables and find out how to make pollination work. ?Helps readers grow and eat locally, reduce or eliminate pesticides and additives, and save money along the way ?Includes step-by-step instructions for harvesting, drying, cleaning, and storing heirloom seeds ?For economical reasons-as well as concern for the environment and personal health-the popularity of gardening has grown in recent years

Provides instructions for seven hundred and fifty recipes that utilize vegetables, including tabbouleh with red and hot peppers, chard gratin, creamy carrot soup, and morels with rhubarb and asparagus.

One of America's most well-known and bestselling gardening writers shares her reflections and advice on finding joy in the garden In A Life in the Garden, horticultural icon Barbara Damrosch imparts a lifetime of wisdom on growing food for herself and her family. In writing that's accessible, engaging, and elegant, she welcomes us to garden alongside her. Personal, thoughtful, and often humorous, this book offers practical DIY insights that will delight gardeners, cooks, and small-scale farmers. With a personal and sometimes irreverent tone, Barbara expresses the pleasure she takes in gardening, the sense of empowerment she finds in it, and the importance of a partnership with the real expert: nature.

While European restaurants race to footnote menus, reassuring concerned gourmands that no genetically modified ingredients were used in the preparation of their food, starving populations around the world eagerly await the next harvest of scientifically improved crops. Mendel in the Kitchen provides a clear and balanced picture of this tangled, tricky (and very timely) topic. Any farmer you talk to could tell you that we've been playing with the genetic makeup of our food for millennia, carefully coaxing nature to do our bidding. The practice officially dates back to Gregor Mendel-who was not a renowned scientist, but a 19th century Augustinian monk. Mendel spent many hours toiling in his garden, testing and cultivating more than 28,000 pea plants, selectively determining very specific characteristics of the peas that were produced, ultimately giving birth to the idea of heredity-and the now very common practice of artificially modifying our food. But as science takes the helm, steering common field practices into the laboratory, the world is now keenly aware of how adept we have become at tinkering with nature-which in turn has produced a variety of questions. Are genetically modified foods really safe? Will the foods ultimately make us sick, perhaps in ways we can't even imagine? Isn't it genuinely dangerous to change the nature of nature itself? Nina Fedoroff, a leading geneticist and recognized expert in biotechnology, answers these questions, and more. Addressing the fear and mistrust that is rapidly spreading, Federoff and her co-author, science writer Nancy Brown, weave a narrative rich in history, technology, and science to dispel myths and misunderstandings. In the end, Fedoroff arues, plant biotechnology can help us to become better stewards of the earth while permitting us to feed ourselves and generations of children to come. Indeed, this new approach to agriculture holds the promise of being the most environmentally conservative way to increase our food supply.

Although South Asian cookery and gastronomy has transformed contemporary urban foodscape all over the world, social scientists have paid scant attention to this phenomenon. Curried Cultures–a wide-ranging collection of essays–explores the relationship between globalization and South Asia through food, covering the cuisine of the colonial period to the contemporary era, investigating its material and symbolic meanings. Curried Cultures challenges disciplinary boundaries in considering South Asian gastronomy by assuming a proximity to dishes and diets that is often missing when food is a lens to investigate other topics. The book’s established scholarly contributors examine food to comment on a range of cultural activities as they argue that the practice of cooking and eating matter as an important way of knowing the world and acting on it.