Honey: A Connoisseur's Guide with Recipes (Hardcover)

~ (Author), Nancie Hughes (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Honey, nature's original sweet, conjures summery images of flowering fields and industrious bees. Those accustomed only to standardized honey sold in supermarkets have no idea of the range of flavors that can spring from this precious liquid, whose character, flavor, and color depend almost exclusively on the kinds of flowers that bees visit on their nectar-gathering flights. Opton has classified the wide varieties of honey, and he describes its production for those not already familiar with hive management. Recipes for using honey emphasize cookies, cakes, and similar desserts, but Opton does have some vegetable dishes and even a meat marinade based on honey. Honey acts mostly as a flavoring in the recipes, sufficient sweetness to reach modern taste thresholds being provided by supplemental sugar. Desserts include a classic Armenian pudding made from whole kernels of wheat. Mark Knoblauch

Product Description

There are over 3000 varieties of honey. With the help of this guide, readers can expertly pick their way through clover, orange blossom, alfalfa and eucalyptus honeys with ease. Over 100 recipes offer an array of ideas for incorporating honeys of all varieties into sauces, soups, sorbets and more.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 144 pages
• Publisher: Ten Speed Press; Revised edition (March 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1580081770
• ISBN-13: 978-1580081771
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 8 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #949,976 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Very nice cookbook, but better for the background info, July 20, 2004

By	Esther Schindler (Scottsdale, AZ USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

I have a sweet tooth and am a dedicated chocoholic, but I have low tolerance to refined sugar. As a result, I tend to cook with natural sweeteners: honey and maple syrup in particular. This book caught my eye, because few cookbooks use honey as a primary sweetener (except for some health food cookbooks, which can still lean precariously towards the carrot-loaf crowd). Using honey adds liquid to recipes as well as throwing off the amount that recipes call for, so often it's not simply a matter of substitution.

This book is better at the "connoisseur's guide" than at the recipes, though I have no complaint with the latter. It's just that the introductory section has a thoroughly enjoyable section on the flavors of honey (lavendar, buckwheat, chestnut) which I haven't seen anywhere else, and a list of sources for those of us who don't live near a great gourmet store.

I *have* seen most of the recipes elsewhere, though these appear to be very nice versions, and the breadth of topics is admirable. The recipe chapters include bread and muffins; fruits and vegetables; main dishes; cookies and cakes; pies and tarts; other desserts; and syrups and toppings. Much of these are "sweets" (well DUH), and anyone looking for a natually-sweetened version of crispy walnut cookies or fresh gingerbread will be pleased to find them here. The book does fine with main courses too, from spiced honeyed carrots (your basic Thanksgiving side dish) to a recipe for pork loin roasted with orange and ginger that I'm itching to try.

This is far from an exhaustive tome, but then it's an inexpensive book. It's quite an enjoyable cookbook, even if it doesn't blow my socks off.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A "must" for all honey enthusiasts!, September 5, 2000

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

More than eighty recipes using honey accompanies a reflective appreciation of honey, sans photos. From fruits and vegetables to meats marinated in honey, Honey is a cookbook recommended for any fan of honey.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great for both info and recipes, July 5, 2007

By	Lorinda Titus "The Bee Lady" (Baltimore, MD USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

As a beekeeper, I have a large number of honey cookbooks sitting on my shelf. The "Connoisseur's Guide" has great info about varietal honey which you rarely see anyplace else. So many people think "honey is honey", and nothing could be further from the truth! It is great to see someone take the time to write about the variations in natural honey.

Plus, so many of the honey cookbooks I have seen come from old sources. The problem with the older sources is that, during a certain time in US history, cooks wanted to keep their recipes secret - why give away their blue ribbon secrets to their next door neighbor, nonetheless write them down in a book for the whole world to read? I have multiple books where either a single ingredient is missing, or the oven temperature is wrong. I even have one recipe for a honey bread that is missing any type of flour!

Not so with this cookbook. I haven't tested all the recipes, but so far, they are all right on the mark. The recipe for baklava is so simple, and you can purchase the dough in the freezer section of the grocery store!

I highly recommend this book to anyone looking to learn more about cooking with a natural honey source.