Customer Reviews

Amazing Grains: Creating Vegetarian Main Dishes with Whole Grains

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I may be biased because I took Joanne's School of Natural Cookery course ten years ago to date and came to know and love this fascinating woman's approach to ingredients and their interrelationships; nonetheless, I still think this book remains a a powerful and compelling learning tool. Amazing Grains opens with the idea of learning cooking as an open process and flexible framework rather than an exercise in rote memorization. Saltzman does not reject the accepted knowledge of traditional cooking, but works through an analysis of why some cooking 'traditions' taste good and what about their ingredients allow them to combine to make delicious dishes. She returns to the basic elements of taste and instructs the reader through theory and example in how to reconstruct flavor combinations to come about one's own dishes. Even more than this, Saltzman's theories work when applied to traditional cookbooks and can be used to analyze, add to, and improve their recipes. Yes, the examples in the book seem somewhat odd at first, but when you realize that the principles used to come about these unusual recipes actually generate successful dishes, you'll become excited about the possibilities! There is a somewhat macrobiotic/American vegetarian slant to this book, hence the frequent use of seaweeds, miso, mirin (Japanese sweetened cooking rice wine), and umeboshi vinegar; however, the art of the book is all about cross-cultural, cross-palate substitutions and how to utilize them wisely. You can find lists of recipes in any other vegetarian cookbook - what this book gives you is the knowledge and power to be your own list-maker!

I found this book a little hard to use. I don't really like the format which is like a textbook for a cooking class but what really frustrated me is that the index isn't right. I looked up several things and was brought to a page that had something totally different.

The information on cooking methods and results was interesting but I wasn't that impressed with the recipes. A lot of them were very strange and said to be results of cooking class improvisation experiments. I would have preferred more basic and traditional recipes with just a few of the odd ones thrown in.

This is a great book for beginners like me! It not only has a few recipes to try, it encourages one to tap into their creativity!
This book has several charts, which I feel is a bonus.
I highly reccommend this book, if you are seeking a means to create meals with INTENT, and you are into philosophical eating.
The recipes contained, are a GREAT base to tailor to your body's particular cravings, or needs, but I would not reccommend this book for the recipes alone.
This book is more about the "how", and less about the "what" to creating your own grains.

I love this cookbook... It is a great grains cookbook! It is wonderful in that it tells the history of different grains and their health benefits. It covers all the grains buckwheat, millet, oats, quinoa, rice, amaranth, job's tears and teff. When I bought this book I was looking for a book that gave you basic cooking instructions for all the different grains and this book was perfect. There are lots of recipes in this book, but to tell you the truth I have used it for more of a reference book than anything and should try more of the recipes. If you are eating macrobiotic or dairy free this cookbook is perfect or if you just want to add some healthy new grains to your diet you will have lots of fun with it.

I just wrote this to put a plug in for her other book, Romancing the Bean. AWESOME book!!! This grain book is good also, but the bean book is like a study-course in bean cookery. This author KNOWS W H Y things work in the kitchen so the implementations of that are multitudinous...hence these 2 ckbks. She may have more. I would buy anything by this author, sight unseen. Well anything about cooking anyway. She has some screwy, neo-paganism (AKA new age) ideas. The books aren't rife with them though, so don't let that scare you. Just glean and spit out the chaff ;).

I never knew there were so many different types of grains, or different ways to prepare them. This book is facinating reading. Not only does Joanne explain the characteristics of different grains, but also the different types of cooking liquids, salt seasonings, oils, vegetables, herbs and spices that make up a dish, and (very helpful) how substituting other ingredients can vary the dish. My favorite recipe is "Oats, Onions, and Thyme". It uses steel-cut oats, and is a delightful change of pace from rice.

I also recommend her other book "Romancing The Bean"

Very few of the recipes inspire me to want to make them. The only ones I am even tempted to try are the couple of oat recipes. There are a lot more rice recipes than any of the other grains. The book is very uninspiring. There are no photos either which might have helped. I must add that I am not a vegetarian but was looking for ways to prepare grains and get more of them in my daily cooking. But OAT GROAT SOUP WITH MUSTARD AND THYME, just doesn't sound very appealing to me, for example.

She lists buckwheat, millet, oats, quinoa, rice, amaranth, job's tears, teff as the grain categories. No wheat or corn.