Customer Reviews

The Winter Vegetarian: A Warm and Versatile Bounty

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

What a great find - my boyfriend gave it to me last winter. The recipies might sound or read strange but be adventurous and TRY THEM. They are imaginitive and oh so tasty. I have tried the veg. stew, roasted winter veg, the baked millet, mushrooms and chestnut in red wine, the jerusalem artichoke, cooked greens etc. etc.

I first came across this cookbook from a recipe that our community supported agriculture (CSA) group shared with us along with our weekly share of the harvest. We've been trying to cook along with the seasons, using what's fresh locally and this cookbook has been great in terms of giving us neat ideas on soups/stews/casseroles to try out. Some of the things we've tried so far are: Garlicky Winter Greens, roasted vegetables with mustard sauce, and winter vegetable stew. There are a lot of recipes with legumes/grains which I'm looking forward to trying out since those are so satisfying in winter time. The ingredients are all pretty straightforward, easy to find. Cayenne and hot peppers are used here and there for a little kick which I like too.

The first recipe I tried was Finnish pulla, a braided bread rich with fragrant, hand-ground cardamom. I divided it into 64 pieces and baked it for my 18th-19th century literature classes (I teach at a big university). What better way to get them interested in the past, than with traditional recipes?

The pulla was a complete success, and simple even for an only-occasional bread baker like me. It turned out soft, aromatic, and it rose nicely, which pulla fans assure me is not always the case. The students loved it, so I'm going to try Darra Goldstein's gingerbread on them next!

I will give several of these books as gifts, to get my friends through the sleets of February. Thank you, Ms. Goldstein, for a lovely cookbook.

ada@traditionaldegrees.com

Received my copy this morning, and have essentially spent the day reading it. I've also already made three recipes (along with getting another started for the morning - the Preston County Buckwheat Cakes have to get a head start before being made) and have found this to be an excellent read.

I'm not a vegetarian, but I am cutting back on the meat I cook (mainly cutting back so I can buy strictly local, humanly raised, grassfed meats - which are costlier) so books like this are a huge help. So many vegetarian books seem to be written from a world of perpetual summer and endless supplies of vine ripened tomatoes. Frankly, a salad is NOT going to be met with any enthusiasm in the middle of a Northern Ohio winter. Pallid hot house veggies are tasteless, watery, and, priced like they are gold plated - so a book devoted to the tasty, filling, and most importantly HEARTY veggie foods out there is something there needs to be more of.

Even better, this isn't 'just' a cookbook. It practically reads like a novel - food porn at it's purest. It tells the history of recipes, the story of the places the foods come from, and embraces the less than sexy vegetables that get overlooked in summer's bounty. Winter squash, root veggies of every stripe, desert recipes that eschew the berries flown in from who knows where and instead embrace the often overlooked dried fruits and autumn apples that are so very tasty. As an added benefit for me, the majority of the recipes will fit seamlessly into my celiac needs. A vast amount of recipes using buckwheat and minimum wheat flour (small enough to be easily subbed out, I've already found.) is an answer to my foodie prayers. This isn't just a book for vegetarians - between a crappy economy and what is supposed to be an even colder than last years winter coming fast, a book that highlights the cheap and healthy vegetables and grains that are plentiful in the colder months is needed by all.

The only reason I'm giving this book 4 stars instead of 5 has nothing to do with the writer or the material. The loss of a star is due to the disservice the publishers gave the book. It's printed on cheap and porous paper - with not a single picture, not even a line drawing to be seen. Which is unfortunate, because I think that from the cover alone they could have had a gorgeous book with the material they had to work with. The book was published in 1996 - so here's hoping it gets reprinted and given a better presentation. It certainly deserves a brush up, because it's a truly lovely and useful book - one I'll be turning to again and again.

What a wonderful change of pace! The emphasis here is on eastern/northern European cuisine with some north North American, although any place that gets cold (e.g. central Asia) certainly is represented.

Goldstein goes well beyond root vegetables and mushrooms--there are a hearty number of millet and buckwheat recipes as well as other delights. The ingredients required are not particularly exotic, yet the recipe selection is fresher and more accessible than the norm. The author is somewhat eclectic in her writing, organization, and selection, but one senses she's actually strongly recommending the recipes that do make it in. This is a vegetarian cookbook that actually makes a serious contribution to the genre.

There do seem to be some minor mistakes in the recipes, but I haven't found anything crucial yet.

Ms. Goldstein is a scholar and a university professor, but this book is anything but dry and academic. Instead it is an affectionate, joyful look at the little-known cold-weather food and recipes from many cultures, from the Finnish pulla bread Ms. Goldstein loved so much as a student, to an arcane but wonderful-sounding fruited Bairam plov from Central Asia. There is an entire chapter devoted to the "much maligned" rutabaga, and chapters about Tolstoy's table and Shrovetide festivities which include recipes for Russian blini and Swedish semlor buns. In all, this is a fascinating look at winter culinary traditions around the world as well as a wonderful book to actually use in the kitchen.

I first ran across this book in the library where I used to live, and when I discovered the library where I now live didn't have it I wanted a copy of my own. It's a treasure.

Darra Goldstein is a professor of Russian history as well as a cookbook author, so she gives historical background to the recipes and ingredients, which adds something special to cooking them. Everything I have tried has been good and not too difficult. Perhaps most importantly, many of the ingredients in winter vegetarian cooking are very cheap--rutabagas, which are prominently featured in the book, were recently on sale for 60 cents a pound at the grocery store. I never thought I would enjoy root vegetables so much before discovering this book.