New Good Food, rev: Essential Ingredients for Cooking and Eating Well (Paperback)

~ Margaret Wittenberg (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"...Anyone concerned with healthy eating and consciousness about our food supply will want this important resource in their kitchen." -- John Mackey, Chairman of the Board, Chief Executive Officer of Whole Foods Market, Inc.

"...New Good Food is the Larousse Gastronomique of natural foods - ingredients, insight, and inspiration in one definitive volume." -- Heidi Swanson, author of Super Natural Cooking

"...a cornerstone of every good cook's library, as well a food literacy text for beginners." -- Mollie Katzen, author of the Moosewood Cookbook

"...an extraordinarily comprehensive guide to foods, ingredients, and their handling." -- Marion Nestle, professor of nutrition, food studies, and public health at New York University, and author of What to Eat.

"...an outstanding tool for any home cook or chef with an interest in making healthy food." -- Nell Newman, Co-founder & President of Newman's Own Organics

Product Description

In NEW GOOD FOOD, industry veteran Margaret M. Wittenberg offers reliable, practical, one-stop advice on organics, whole grains, buying local, sustainability, and more. Focusing on core food products available at large-scale and natural foods markets, she profiles everything from new sweeteners like agave nectar to specialty flours like spelt and barley to gourmet salts. She also clears up confusing food labels, misleading marketing claims, and common misperceptions behind everyday foods, conclusively answering questions like "Grass-fed beef versus grain-fed--what's the difference?" and "Are there good options for gluten-free cooking and baking?" Seasonal produce charts and preparation advice for new (or new-to-you) products provide the essentials for enjoying whole foods every day, every way.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 296 pages
• Publisher: Ten Speed Press (November 1, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1580087507
• ISBN-13: 978-1580087506
• Product Dimensions: 9.9 x 7.9 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #454,081 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Reads like a catalog, not a reference, April 20, 2008

By	J. Kletsky (San Francisco, CA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Taking a quick flip through this book has one thinking that the volume is encyclopedic and loaded with good information about ingredients. Unfortunately, the depth of information is very shallow and, in some cases, of unclear value.

As background, I have a good sized bookshelf filled with cookbooks and tend to prefer those that discuss authentic ingredients and techniques over the "quick and easy" type. If I'm looking for information on ethnic ingredients, the source should stand up to content in texts like "Japanese Cooking: A Simple Art" (Tsuji), "The Modern Art of Chinese Cooking" (Tropp), or "Classic Indian Cooking" (Sahni).

"New Good Food" often has little more than a paragraph of general information on each ingredient, with the focus seeming to be on why a food store like Whole Foods would select it for its claimed health benefits, rather than providing significant culinary or cultural depth.

There is some substitution information (e.g., sweeteners) and cooking information (e.g., grains and legumes), but its accessibility and depth ("Cut in half or in wedges and steam, or bake with a splash of oil, a favorite seasoning, and salt or tamari.") is not enough to make this book a "go to" for me.

Some of the discussions about what the food terms, such as "organic" and "free range" mean, might be of value to some, but that information is widely available elsewhere.

In some cases, the information is questionable. For example, the section on cooking by color identifies potatoes in the "yellow or orange" group or the "red" group according to their skin color, though the skin is generally not eaten and does not contain the carotenoids at the levels associated with eating "orange" vegetables. It further lists eggplant as a valuable "blue or purple" vegetable, though eggplant has very little value other than a little dietary starch.

"New Good Food" also falls into the trap of "natural is good" on occasion as well. After dismissing all "artificial, nonnutritive sweeteners" (which I generally would agree with), the virtues of Stevia are extolled, because it is a "natural, plant-based substance," even though the "human body can't completely metabolize [Stevia-based sweeteners]." Conium maculatum is a common herb, which produces a "natural, plant-based substance" known as "deadly hemlock." I'm not suggesting that Stevia is poisonous. However, I am aware that it is recommended against for people with liver conditions, probably because of the load its non-nutritive, non-metabolizable chemicals, naturally occurring or not, put on that organ.

With two vegetarians in our family, along with allergy to soy and soy products, I was hoping for a reference on some of the less common ingredients available at market today to complement my current "go to" general reference cookbooks. "New Good Food" isn't about to find a place next to, for example, Cooks Illustrated "The [New] Best Recipe" or many of the excellent CIA series, such as "Techniques of Healthy Cooking, Professional Edition"

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a map for the grocery store maze, May 4, 2008

By	enlightened in Illinois - See all my reviews

Most grocery stores today offer a lot more choices than they used to. There are so many types of cheeses, there are different types of apples, there are choices from the Asian food section, there are a lot of different pastas. And then what do you do with these foods? How do you store them? I found this book to be an excellent guide as to what unusual looking fruits or vegetables were and how they could be used; how to store cheeses; what vegetables should not be refrigerated. In other words if I want to try a food that I am not familiar with I use this book to help me incorporate it into my menu. I find the information on storage very valuable since I don't seem to have time to shop frequently and like to buy in at least a weekly quantity.

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Delicious guide to whole foods, January 30, 2008

By	H. Grove "owling6683" (Maryland, USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Whether you're looking for information on produce or whole grains, seafood or meats, dairy or sea vegetables, it's in here. I've already done quite a bit of reading in whole foods books, and yet I learned plenty of new and fascinating things in this volume. Much of it is incredibly practical. For example, if you want to know the difference between Tamari, Shoyu, and Soy Sauce---the practical differences in how they're produced and what they contain---that's all in here. You'll understand how to figure out which ones are fermented vs. which ones are produced chemically; which ones are better for high-heat cooking vs. which ones are better as a condiment and why; and so on. If you want to know the complex process by which Tamari was originally produced (as a by-product of miso production), you can read about that, too.

Or maybe you'd like to delve into the wide variety of sea vegetables available in the whole foods market, but you don't know how to even begin using them. Ms. Wittenberg's book identifies each one and provides detailed instructions for using them in various types of cooking.

New Good Food includes plenty of information on various sweeteners---not just how they're made, but what sorts of sugars they're comprised of and how quickly those sugars break down in the body (essential information for diabetics). The section on produce includes information on the peak seasons for a very wide variety of items so you'll know when to go looking for them at their best. Information on whole grains from around the world includes not just historical and nutritional information, but of course basic cooking methods as well.

New Good Food is an utterly fantastic reference volume to keep on your shelves as you experiment with more whole foods.