Natural Gourmet [Paperback]

Annemarie Colbin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 13, 1991

Annemarie Colbin learned early of the important relationship between food and health: having grown up in a vegetarian household, she spent many years integrating Eastern eating philosophies with Western habits, studying the works of everyone from J.I. Rodale and George Ohsawa to Julia Child and James Beard. With The Natural Gourmet, Colbin takes her ideas about healthful eating a step further with meals that nourish body and soul, and that are elegant enough to serve to company.

The recipes included in The Natural Gourmet are the result of a collaborative effort by Colbin and ten students from her Natural Gourmet Cookery School in Manhattan. Each recipe is classified according to the Chinese Theory of the Five Phases, making it easy to combine the various courses to create a balanced, harmonious meal. Among the delicious dishes you'll find are:
-- Curried Apple-Squash Bisque
-- Mushrooms Stuffed with Garlic and Rosemary
-- San Franciscan Pizza
-- Lissa's Homemade Black Pepper Pasta with Scallion-Butter Sauce
-- Stuffed Cabbage Rolls
-- Jalapeno Corn Bread
-- Japanese Red Bean Soup
-- Lentil Croquettes
-- Potato-Cabbage Casserole with Dill
-- Black Bean Salad with Corn and Red Pepper
-- Pasta Salad with Zucchini and Chick-peas
-- Poached Salmon Fillets with Mock Hollandaise
-- Almond Flan with Raspberry Sauce
-- Ginger Lace Cookies
-- Orange Loaf with Walnuts
-- and many more

All the recipes are in keeping with Colbin's belief that food should be whole, fresh, local, and seasonal -- and, of course, delicious. Much more than simply a cookbook, The Natural Gourmet presents a combination of food preparation and philosophy that come together in a plan for healthful and graceful living.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Colbin's imaginative vegetarian recipes borrow ingredients and methods from cuisines as diverse as Japanese (shoyu consomme with enoki mushrooms), Italian (asparagus risotto) and American (apple-cranberry pie). Encouraging a balanced diet based on whole foods--mainly beans, grains and greens--Colbin uses seasoning to broaden our horizons. The founder and director of the Natural Gourmet Cooking School in New York, she eschews most dairy products, white sugar and meat, but approves of fish and light, whole-grain desserts (some of the latter include eggs and butter). And, influenced by macrobiotic nutrition, Colbin ( The Book of Whole Meals ; Food and Healing ) suggests a new method for achieving needed nourishment. "I am inclined to philosophy," she writes, "and an eating style based on firm philosophical principles makes more sense to me than one based on constantly changing scientific data." In her Chinese-derived "Five-Phase Theory of Eating," less practical than Colbin's more traditional prescriptions, foods are categorized into one of five "phases" (wood, fire, earth, metal, water), with meals composed of foods from each. Author tour.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Colbin, author of several popular cookbooks, created these recipes with students at her Manhattan cooking school. She has developed a Western macrobiotic cuisine, emphasizing whole foods and natural ingredients. Her expertise is evident, but many of her dishes will most likely appeal to strongly committed vegetarians; and her Five Phase Theory of menu balancing seems questionable. Still, any vegetarian collection should add this.-- JS
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Ballantine Books (February 13, 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0345370287
• ISBN-13: 978-0345370280
• Product Dimensions: 6 x 0.8 x 9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #249,137 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Annemarie Colbin, Ph.D., has been called "a maverick nutritional theorist" (1986) because of her original, unconventional and practical points of view about using fresh, whole, natural, real foods as the basis for a healthy diet. Interestingly, the whole mainstream has shifted in her direction, so she is no longer such an outsider. The school she founded on her principles in 1977, known as The Natural Gourmet Institute for Health and Culinary Arts, has been a major resource for people interested in a career in healthful cooking for more than 30 years. Website: www.naturalgourmetinstitute.com.


Her 20+-year bestseller Food and Healing, is used as a textbook in natural healing schools. She expressed her points of view in her other books, and in her numerous articles, columns, interviews and classes. Her latest book is "The Whole-Food Guide to Strong Bones - a wholistic approach."

Dr Colbin is a health educator and an award-winning writer, consultant and lecturer; she has won awards for her writing, her business activities, and her teaching. She has taught at Empire State and Touro Colleges, at the Open Center, and yearly at the Institute for Integrative Nutrition, as well as regularly at the NGI. Dr Colbin offers private wellness consultations, and is generally recognized as an expert in the uses of food for health. Website: www.foodandhealing.com.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very useful, September 10, 2001

By 

jumpy1 (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Natural Gourmet (Paperback)

This is a great follow-up to The Book of Whole Meals, because the food gets more creative. The first part of the book explains how to balance meals using the Chinese 5-Element system, which really helps in overcoming cravings for junk foods. They also label the recipes so you can figure out how to fit them into the system. I have to admit I've mainly used the book for this purpose. For the recipes, I adjusted them to suit my own taste, and found them satisfying.

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This Book has the Best Tasting Wheat-Free Pumpkin Pie Recipe, October 23, 2002

By 

Tiffany (Denver, CO USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Natural Gourmet (Paperback)

This is a great cookbook. The pumkin pie crust is wheat free and it tastes great. It's always a hit at the holidays, and the pumkin pie part of the recipe is dairy free, this recipe is so nutritious that you can eat it anytime. The entire book has some great solutions. And if you are in NYC you should try to take a class at Ann Marie's Cooking School.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Natural Kitchen Classic!, December 7, 2008

By 

Elaine B. Mack "salad lover" (South Korea) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Natural Gourmet (Hardcover)

This is a superb book! I first discovered Anne Marie Colbin's "Natural Gourmet" back in 1990 while cooking for a friend who had chronic fatigue syndrome. I cooked at least 80% of the recipes for her, and in the process learned a lot about how simple good and healthy food can be to prepare. I learned about the Chinese Five Phases, which have influenced my cooking and eating styles for almost 20 years now. I lost my original copy of this book during a move, so now I'm buying a new one, along with two other of her newer books. The salad recipes are really remarkable, with creative, tasty, and surprisingly simple ingredients. A great book, pure and simple!