The Tomato Festival Cookbook: 150 Recipes that Make the Most of Your Crop of Lush, Vine-Ripened, Sun-Warmed, Fat, Juicy, Ready-to-Burst Heirloom Tomatoes [Paperback]

Lawrence Davis-Hollander (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1, 2004

With 150 tempting recipes for those lush, vine-ripened, sun-warmed, fat, juicy, and ready-to-burst heirloom tomatoes, The Tomato Festival Cookbook is the landmark cookbook for America's favorite garden vegetable. Author Lawrence Davis-Hollander presents an exhaustive collection of everything about the tomato--from tomato lore, gardening how-to, expert advice on seed saving and preservation to selecting the right heirlooms for your garden and your kitchen. With definitive recipes for such classics as Tomato Basil Quiche and marinara sauce to show-stoppers from chefs Alice Waters, Deborah Madison, Daniel Boulud, Rick Bayless, and Melissa Kelly, to name a few.

Whether you grow your own rainbow selection of heirlooms or are thinking of adding them to your garden, Davis-Hollander has the best advice on heirloom growing. As the founder and director of the Eastern Native Seed Conservancy, an organization dedicated to promoting our knowledge of useful plants, especially heirloom food plants, Davis-Hollanderhas handpicked the recipes and the chefs to contribute to this preeminent tomato bible. Along with an impressive background in botany and farming, Lawrence is committed to food preservation, sustainable farming, and the rebirth of the American Farmer's Market. For the tomato lover who does not have a garden full of plump, red heirlooms, this book offers a guide to the local Farmer's Market with a knowledgeable eye and an appetite for Green Zebras, Cherokee Chocolates, Box Car Willies, Omar's Lebanese, and Earl of Edgecombs. With recipes for everything from salsas, risottos, and Chicken Nicoise to tomato tarts and sorbet, The Tomato Festival Cookbook takes the tomato to new culinary heights. For anyone who loves eating, growing, preserving or just admiring tomatoes, The Tomato Festival Cookbook is as essential to the kitchen as the tomato itself.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The majority of Americans have never tasted a good tomato. Thankfully, Davis-Hollander has devoted his life to saving future Americans from the trend of tasteless tomatoes bred for uniformity, "grown in the off-season with low levels of light, picked green, and artificially ripened and then shipped three thousand miles," via the heirloom seed-saving and propagation efforts of his Eastern Native Seed Conservancy, in western Massachusetts. Every year, participants in ENSC's Epicurean Tomato Festival celebrate the mind-blowing diversity of hundreds of generations-old tomato varieties in a full spectrum of shapes and colors, from Aunt Ruby's German Green to Cherokee Purple to Orange Banana. Davis-Hollander's first book brings together familiar preparations, like tomato sauce and ratatouille, with contemporary restaurant innovations like Blue Ginger's Candied Tomato Tart with Five-Spiced Hazelnut Crust and exotic dishes like West African Chicken, Peanut, and Tomato Stew, along with specific recommendations for the best-tasting heirlooms for each. Bursting with history and folklore, this is also a practical handbook for identifying, growing and preserving heirloom tomatoes with an appendix on buying and saving seeds and a glossary explaining the difference between open-pollinated, indeterminate and hybrid varieties. Davis-Hollander may offer more than even the most devoted tomato lover would ever want to know, but his book is worth the price if only for the crucial lesson that tomatoes should never be refrigerated. Two-color illus. throughout.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

This compendium of common knowledge and obscure facts about the tomato plant and its fruit can answer just about any question that a gardener or cook can conceive about the world's most popular garden staple. Much of the history of the tomato plant is familiar: how it went from the Americas to Europe and then back again; how it can be transformed into a sauce base, a salad, a soup, a bread topping, and even a dessert. Its varieties include all sorts of shapes and virtually every hue. Davis-Hollander recounts tomato history in informative sidebars to his text, which concerns itself with the enumeration and description of the many purebred heirloom and hybrid plants domesticated for both home garden and farm. His recipes lay out the tomato's most basic contributions to culinary art, and they allow the cook to create individual interpretations from fundamental principles. His guide to preserving one's annual bumper crop helps gardeners deal with nature's annual bounty. Mark Knoblauch
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Storey Publishing, LLC (May 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1580174981
• ISBN-13: 978-1580174985
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.9 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #214,137 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Focuses upon culinary creations featuring heirloom tomatoes, July 16, 2004

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Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Tomato Festival Cookbook: 150 Recipes that Make the Most of Your Crop of Lush, Vine-Ripened, Sun-Warmed, Fat, Juicy, Ready-to-Burst Heirloom Tomatoes (Paperback)

Compiled and organized by Lawrence Davis-Hollander (Founder and Director of the Eastern Native Seed Conservancy), The Tomato Festival Cookbook showcases 150 recipes each of which focuses upon culinary creations featuring heirloom tomatoes as a principal ingredient. Along with the "kitchen friendly" recipes, The Tomato Festival Cookbook offers informed advice on selecting the very best heirloom tomatoes, reveals how to grow great-tasting tomatoes in your own garden, provides historical tomato lore, as well as profiles of notable tomato growers and thematically appropriate regional festivals. From Tomato and Corn Salsa; Stuffed Mussels with Tomatoes and Almonds; Spicy Tomato Cocktails; and Heirloom Tomato and Goat Cheese Salad; to Robert Gurvich's Pizza with Fresh Tomato Sauce; Spanish-Style Fish with Tomatoes and Potatoes; Tomato Jam Tart; and Tomato-Rice Casserole with Poblanos, Beef, and Melted Cheese, The Tomato Festival Cookbook will prove to a welcome and much appreciated addition to any tomato lover's personal cookbook collection!

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars More than a Cookbook!, February 26, 2006

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Robert A. Williams "libertarian" (Oberlin, OH United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Tomato Festival Cookbook: 150 Recipes that Make the Most of Your Crop of Lush, Vine-Ripened, Sun-Warmed, Fat, Juicy, Ready-to-Burst Heirloom Tomatoes (Paperback)

This first-time author brings together reknowned chefs and tomato connoisseurs who share over 150 mouth-watering receipes ranging from common preparations like spaghetti sauce to fancy creations like West African Chicken. Sidebars of information are included giving growing tips and historical lore for selecting the best-tasting heirlooms for each recipe. Davis-Hollander uses carefully selected and saved tomato seeds to produce exquisite tomatoes for his exotic recipes. This is a good source for specific information on heirloom tomatoes and a variety of tasty dishes.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful Tomato Book!, August 13, 2009

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cmgribble "cmgribble" (us) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Tomato Festival Cookbook: 150 Recipes that Make the Most of Your Crop of Lush, Vine-Ripened, Sun-Warmed, Fat, Juicy, Ready-to-Burst Heirloom Tomatoes (Paperback)

This book covers all aspects of tomatoes and has plenty of delightful recipes.

This book covered everything I wanted to know about tomatoes and more.

If you want to learn more about what you are growing in your garden and some great ways to prepare tomatoes consider purchasing this book. There is a great deal of fascinating history surrounding the "simple" tomato plant. Nicely printed with old style drawings, The Tomato Festival Cookbook is well worth it's weight in tomatoes.