The Organic Cook's Bible: How to Select and Cook the Best Ingredients on the Market

by Jeff Cox

Book Overview

The most comprehensive, authoritative organic foods guide available Flavorful, nutritious meals begin with flavorful, nutritious ingredients. They also begin with knowledge. If you want to learn about... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0471445789
• ISBN13: 9780471445784
• Release Date: April 2006
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
• Length: 546 Pages
• Weight: 0.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.7" x 7.6" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

A 'must' for any serious culinary or home organic cook's collection.

Plenty of books on the market cover organic foods and health, but THE ORGANIC COOK'S BIBLE is a resource which goes beyond recipes to offer a survey of organic ingredients and how to choose, store and prepare them. Home cooks and chefs receive a guide which covers meats, dairy, herbs, spices and more, with an A-Z arrangement for quick and easy reference, and a survey of over a hundred organic foods, from flavor and nutrition benefits to storage, what to look for, and top varieties. A 'must' for any serious culinary or home organic cook's collection. Diane C. Donovan California Bookwatch

Amazing!! An absolute must have reference book

I borrowed this book on an impulse from our local library. I was pleasantly surprised at how thorough and easy to use this book is. It is an absolute must, whether you are into organic foods or not. It covers everything from fruits & vegetables, meats, dairy, grains, pasta and nuts. How many times have you gone to the grocery store and wondered how to tell if the fruit you were looking at was good(like melons) or wondered what some fruit or vegetable tasted like and what to use it for? This book clearly explains how to pick the best produce, what the nutritional information is, with beautiful color photos. I can't wait to get my own copy and start trying some of the recipes. This will definitely be something I use every day. This deserves a rating of 10 stars!!!

You need this book.

This book answers all of my questions about produce: the organic factor, (which tells you whether a certain product is sprayed heavily with toxins when you cannot purchase organic), nutrition details, seasonality, what to look for when buying, preparation, and uses. There is just the right amount of detail including full colour photographs of vegetables, nuts, fruits - or whatever you are looking for. I find this very helpful when I want to buy something that I am unfamiliar with like Okra for instance. The material is extremely accessible. Everything in this book is organized perfectly so that you intuitively know where to find what you are looking for. I love the headings, shadings, chunking of information and the gorgeous green font that suits this book. I use this book daily for a reference. On top of being extremely useful, it would make a great coffee table book. I'm sure that people couldn't keep their hands off of it.

Very Interesting!

This book has everything anyone wants or needs to know about vegtables, fruits, meats, nuts, and any other food out there. It makes for interesting reading about how foods are grown, prepped for sale, sold, and what you need to know about them. I am not an 'organic' eater or shopper all the time. I just try to eat healthy and this book is truly a Bible for finding out how to do that. Well worth the read.

Thorough, easy to use and nearly indispensable

While this well-organized encyclopedic reference and cookbook covers meat and poultry as well as produce, it's the fruits and vegetables that get organics guru Cox's most loving attention. Each section - vegetables, fruits, nuts and grains, herbs and spices, meats, dairy and eggs and kitchen staples (oils, flour, sweeteners) - is organized alphabetically. Each entry follows a format which includes a brief history, a nutritional profile and comparison with non-organics, various types and varieties, seasonality, what to look for (and avoid), preparation, cooking tips and recipes. The "what to look for" comments are especially illuminating as Cox explains what weather and time do and how you can spot the signs. Recipes (250) come from a variety of sources and Cox also includes general tips about what techniques and ingredients suit each food. Sidebars throughout share personal anecdotes and gardening experiences. In addition to providing new information about ordinary garden-variety produce, he includes those you see in the grocery but aren't sure about - like jicama or passion fruit - those you might not recognize if you did see them, like medlars or crosnes, and even those Cox himself has never tasted or seen like the mangosteen, reputedly the most delicious fruit in the world. You'll also find a list of edible flowers. Easy to use, this is a must-have, particularly for anyone interested in getting their families to eat more vegetables - quality being the first essential. --Portsmouth Herald