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The Wild Vegetarian Cookbook
by "Wildman" Steve Brill
Available from Amazon
$19.77
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Features
Hardcover: 544 pages
Publisher: Harvard Common Press May 2002
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1558322140
ISBN-13: 978-1558322141
Product Dimensions:
9.6 x 8.3 x 1.7 inches
Shipping Weight: 2.8 pounds
From Publishers Weekly
Brill follows his Identifying and Harvesting Edible and Medicinal Plants in Wild (And Not So Wild) Places with this specialist volume aimed at cooking found and gathered produce. Stressing the need to forage safely and not eat any plant unless completely certain of its identification and that it's free of pesticides and herbicides, the author explains "what makes wild food special" before describing methods of preparation and food types, winemaking and the wild food seasons. Main courses and desserts are intermingled so much so that it becomes hard to tell whether the ingredient is a main component or an enhancer. Filled with humorous anecdotes and small descriptions, almost every recipe relies on at least one foraged ingredient, though where possible Brill offers health store alternatives (while Monsieur Wildman's French Dressing calls for wild spearmint, he does suggest cultivated mint; unsweetened apple juice can be substituted for wild apples in Spiced Wild Apple Cider). In the end, the book will appeal to those who enjoy foraging in the wild as well as the vegetarian who is not only health- but also environmentally conscious.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Brill, the author of an earlier field guide to wild plants, has been conducting "foraging tours" in Manhattan (including Central Park) and throughout greater New York since the mid-1980s. His new book includes dozens of recipes using wild foods, from sassafras and daylily shoots to blue violets and cow parsnips; each entry includes a brief description of the plant as well. Strict vegetarians will be delighted by Brill's recipes; nonvegetarians looking for dishes made with these unusual foods will be disappointed to find so many that call for ingredients like kudzu, lecithin, granules, liquid aminos, and the like (although there are alternatives suggested when possible). For vegetarian and other special collections.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
Reader Reviews
"Happy Foraging" WILDMAN STEVE BRILL THE FORAGING GOURMET author of The Wild Vegetarian Cookbook: A forager's Culinary Guide (in the Field or in the Supermarket to Preparing and Savoring Wild (and Not So Wild) Natural Foods with more than 500 Recipes. Published by The Harvard Common Press, Boston. 500 pages with five appendices: The Wildman's mission is thus: "The local environment has sources of foods that are delicious, healthful and organic, including herbs, greens, fruit, berries, nuts, seeds and even mushrooms." Q. Who is Wildman? A. Good-natured, with a sense of humor, Steve Brill has been guiding foraging tours in and around New York since 1982. He enjoys telling the story of how he was arrested and handcuffed by undercover park rangers for eating a dandelion in Central Park, a food resource area he highly supports. He's lectured in schools, for youth programs, museums, libraries and environmental groups for years. Brill is also a foraging and natural-cooking expert whose new cookbook teaches you to use nearly 150 of America's finest wild food plants to prepare tasty meals. Brill does caution and wisely so: "It is the reader's responsibility to identify and use the information in this book sensibly." He sums up the 29 pages of pre-foraging information with an admonishment to pay particular attention to correct identification of foods in the wild and recommends the additional use of his book, Identifying and Harvesting Edible and Medicinal Plants in Wild (and Not so Wild) Places. A TRIP THROUGH THE BOOK The Wild Vegetarian Cookbook starts by introducing wild and purchased natural foods and basic methods for preparing them. He gets into seasonings, tips on adapting natural ingredients to traditional cooking methods and explains how to harvest wild foods safely. Next he goes into recipes for "unwild foods." Tofu-based cheeses are basic to many of Brill's recipes, and he presents his recipes for Tofu Cream Cheese, Tofu Cottage Cheese, Tofu Sour Cream, and the like. While he employs a lot of in-book cross-references, he creates few, if any, unsolved mysteries. The book is divided into seasonal sections featuring: Winter and early spring: hearty wild greens and roots Mid-to-Late Spring: best time to find wild vegetables Summer with its plethora of fruits, flowers, greens and mushrooms. Autumn: The further abundance of mushrooms, fruits also nuts. His Table of Contents is a large, helpful, non-alphabetical, listing of recipe names grouped with the wild food it calls for, plus page numbers. His Index is an alphabetical index of types of foods and associated recipes. Here's an overview of just a few of his recipes: WINTER WILD FOODS Winter Cress Kimchi To winter cress, he adds garlic, red onion, dill or coriander seed and chili paste to taste. Chickweed Bean Spread Brill combines adzuki beans, olive oil, vinegar, bayberry leaves, herbs and dried epazote leaves, stems or flowers EARLY SPRING WILD FOODS Daylily Wine Sugar, water, daylily shoots, lemon juice tarragon, dill, poppy seeds and a little champagne or wine yeast Curried Dandelions A small amount of oil, dandelion leaves, garlic tofu, miso, fresh lime juice and curry powder (recipe also in the book) Stinging Nettles Indian Style The Sauce: Chick pea flour, Garam Marsala (recipe in book), seasoning, tumeric, tofu, lime juice, water The veggie: garlic, chilis and 8 cups stinging nettle, chopped Scalloped Fiddleheads Spread fiddleheads in a casserole dish, top with Tofu Cream Cheese and Bread Crumbs (recipe in book), bake MID-TO-LATE SPRING WILD FOODS Garlic Beans Black or white beans, wild garlic bulbs, fresh chopped epazote leaves, cumin, olive oil and seasoning Exotic Rice Mixture of wild and sweet brown rice, currants, shredded coconut, raw cashews, red onion, Garam Masala, bayberry leaves and seasoning SUMMER WILD FOODS Mulberry Kiwi Ice Cream Soy milk, tofu, glycerin, honey, barley malt, lecithin granules, lemon juice, vanilla, liquid stevia and mulberries Blackberry Spiced Wine Ala Brill: sugar, water, blackberries, spicebush berries, cloves, cinnamon sticks and champagne or wine yeast AUTUMN Hot Cheese Tacos Tofu cream cheese, red chile sauce (in book), acorn tortillas (in book) Acorn Noodles Brown rice flour, acorn flour (in book) arrowroot or kudzu, nutmeg, marjoram, sage, seasoning, corn oil and water Vegetarian Chicken Salad Chicken mushrooms, celery, romaine lettuce, olives, almonds, Wild Mustard Seed Mayonaise (in book) and chopped field garlic leaves Simply Oysters Olive oil, oyster mushrooms, chiles, garlic, lemon juice, fresh dill, tamari soy sauce and White Oak Wine (in book) If you, somehow, cannot roam the woods for your particular culinary adventure, this is a great book to deliver the adventure to you, also witness the sincere inventiveness of its enthusiastic author. ...
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