Product Description

The most comprehensive and authoritative food encyclopedia available.

Cooking can be a wondrous adventure, especially with a thorough understanding of the history and origins of food, a grasp of the cultures and environments involved, and an appreciation for those who over the years have played key roles in its development.

The Food Encyclopedia has 8,000 entries, with cross-reference on foods, wines, beverages, cooking methods and techniques, and biographies of prominent people. It is the most comprehensive food reference in the marketplace today, featuring 500 stunning illustrations and photographs alongside its extensive coverage.

In the entry on arugula, for example, we read that it is an assertive salad green, eruca sativa, has a peppery taste somewhere between nasturtium and watercress, and is used frequently in Mediterranean dishes. The ancient Romans used both the leaves and the seeds of arugula. Thomas Jefferson, in detailed written instructions to his gardener at Monticello, listed arugula as essential for his kitchen garden.

Included are more than 150 biographies of prominent individuals -- chefs, authors and inventors -- who have contributed to food and its lore. Chefs include Julia Child, Paul Bocuse, Alice Waters and Michael Stadtlander. Among the notable authors are Elizabeth David, M.F.K. Fisher and Irma S. Rombauer. The inventors include Carl Sontheimer the developer of the Cuisinart food processor.

Becoming more familiar with words and terms, and finding out the background behind a food or an ingredient, ensures a well-prepared dish and adds to the pleasure of serving it. For any cook, this authoritative and fascinating book is an outstanding reference and cookbook companion.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #121357 in Books
• Published on: 2006-10-09
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 701 pages

Review
Selected as one of the 'Best of Reference 2007' by the New York Public Library. (New York Public Library (nypl.org) 200704)

Cooks seeking a serious all-in-one reference will find this a treasure trove of historical and culinary detail. (Diane C. Donovan The Midwest Book Review (California Bookwatch) 200703)

[Winner of a Special Jury Award in 2006:] This Food Encyclopedia is a new masterpiece. (Gourmand 2007)

In-depth information and ... the latest culinary trends and techniques... this authoritative source will delight anyone who loves food. (Susan C. Awe American Reference Books Annual 200703)

Whether you're looking for an entertaining read or need some mealtime advice, this authoritative guide is a one-size-fits-all. (Diane Hodges Cookbook Digest 20070418)

Oh, foodies, celebrate! ... Hours and hours of delicious reading. (Arizona Daily Star 20061102)

This is the newest reference book on my desk, and it has already come in handy several times. (Florida Times-Union 200611)

One of the most complete [food reference books] I've ever seen in a single volume. (Dave DeWitt Fiery-Foods.com 20061214)

You won't find a better food reference... This is an excellent reference for the home cook. (Carol Anderson Escondido North County Times 200707)

This heavyweight [is] packed with answers to all of your questions about what's on your plate. (Phoenix Home and Garden 20061108)

book for everyone who likes food, cooking or simply being informed... just plain fun to read. (Jo Ellen O'Hara Birmingham New 200707)

Wealth of information... This readable work is a great resource for people interested in the culinary arts. Summing Up: Recommended. (J.C. Tucker Choice )

About the Author
Jacques L. Rolland has a degree in culinary art and hotel management, and is also a certified sommelier. Representing the third generation of hoteliers and restaurateurs in his family, he owns and operates a glorious hotel in Oregon's wine country.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Introduction

"Tell me what you eat and I will tell you what you are:"
- Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, The Physiology of Taste (La Physiologie du goût), 1825

Although all animals eat, only humans discuss and write about this most basic need. Our survival and ability to thrive depend upon the nutrients food provides, and what we eat, not to mention how it is prepared, appreciated and remembered, is as deep and complex as any work of art. To learn about ourselves as consumers of food is to be in touch with the deepest aspects of our humanity.

Ever since Eve ate the apple in the Garden of Eden, our taste buds have influenced the course of world events. "The fate of nations depends upon the way they eat," concluded the French gourmand and epicurean Brillat-Savarin. Thoughts about the way we eat permeate culture, from literature, religion, philosophy and anthropology to science and medicine. In fact, food is such a fundamental part of our lives, we're likely to take it for granted, which would be a terrible mistake. The journey from our ancestors' discovery of fire to the fine art of gastronomy is the story of the human race, an eventful romp, loaded with lively anecdotes and startling information. Often it makes great bedtime reading.

Whether you're looking for an entertaining read or the answer to a specific culinary question, The Food Encyclopedia offers a unique vantage point from which to expand your knowledge of food and your appreciation of cooking. Food words, such as the names of fruits and vegetables, recipe titles and cooking techniques or terminology, rarely come about by chance. Insight into their historical origins is not only interesting -- it makes the adventure of cooking all the more enjoyable. You likely recognize restaurant as a place to eat. But do you know its fascinating history? For the answer, turn to page 544.

Based on many years of research from a wide range of sources and containing more than 8,000 definitions of key food and beverage terms, techniques and biographies of prominent food people, including famous chefs, authors and inventors, as well as a wealth of historical background, this treasury of food lore is much more than an excellent resource. It's a book to browse through, one that will take both the interested amateur and the professional cook on a delightful journey through the world of food.

How To Use This Book

This book has been organized with two main objectives in mind. Firstly, we encourage browsing. Culinary literature can be very entertaining, and we hope we've opened the door to an enjoyable journey through the world of food. The book should be a good read and fun to browse through. Secondly, we've worked hard to make this an excellent reference work, the first you'll turn to when you have a question about food. The answers to specific questions are easy to find and wherever possible will open the door to further exploration.

Here's some handy information to help you look up your favorite words.

ALPHABETICAL ORDER.

All entries are in alphabetical order. When entries contain more than one word -- for example, à la carte -- they are treated as a single word (àlacarte). Thus, akala comes before à la carte.

CROSS-REFERENCING

is indicated in bold when the word is unusual and the reader wants to learn more about it, such as génoise, which is mentioned under cake. It also has its own listing. For more information about génoise, go to G.

BOLD

is also used for easy access to words within an entry when the reader has been referred to it.

ITALICS

are used to indicate foreign phrases, genus names, and book and magazine titles.

MORE INFORMATION.

Many entries end with a list of other entries to see for additional information about similar foods. For instance, under cheese, you'll find a comprehensive list of all the different cheeses listed throughout the book from ADMIRALS to YARG.

MULTIPLE MEANINGS.

When a word has multiple meanings, the first entry is the most common usage followed by the other meaning(s).

MULTIPLE NAMES AND SPELLINGS

(for example, ajowan -- also ajwain) are in bold. Because many food terms have multiple names, they are listed under the most common usage and cross-referenced. For instance, Queensland nut will refer you to the more common usage macadamia nut.

SUBTOPICS

are cross-referenced with listings of a larger scope -- for example, brown rice will send you over to rice for a comprehensive look at this ancient grain.

VARIETIES.

When a main entry such as apples has many different varieties, they are grouped together in a breakout box for easy reference.

Contributors

Jacques L. Rolland has a degree in culinary art and hotel management and is a certified sommelier. His appreciation and knowledge of food has been honed from the many cultures he has experienced. He is the author of The Cook's Essential Kitchen Dictionary.

Carol Sherman is an author and award-winning editor with a special interest in food and health. She has edited many bestselling cookbooks and food-reference books including The Food Substitutions Bible, winner of a 2006 International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP) cookbook award. She was the managing editor of the travel magazine Destinations and founding editor of Thomson newspaper's Healthfile. She is the co-author of Highlights: An Illustrated History of Cannabis and Yoga in a Muskoka Chair.

Christina Anson Mine is the managing editor of Canadian Living and Homemakers magazines. She received a degree in Spanish from Washington's Georgetown University and spent her third year studying in Spain. After graduation, she lived for a year in Kyoto, Japan. Much of her professional life has been spent as a magazine editor, focused on food, nutrition, health and fitness as well as copy editing a variety of cookbooks and reference works for Robert Rose Inc. Her love of food was born during her childhood in Massachusetts and developed into a passion once she began to travel internationally.

Jo Calvert is a writer and senior editor at Canadian Living magazine specializing in gardening and crafts. One of her great pleasures is baking apple pies with fruit picked from the trees she planted herself. Jo dedicates her work in this book to Moira Gillette, who loved to cook unusual dishes for the usual crowd.

Judith Finlayson is a journalist and author who began her career writing feature food articles, reviewing restaurants and developing recipes for magazines. Her work has been published widely in Canadian newspapers and magazines and she is the author of ten books, six of which are bestselling cookbooks.

Stephanie Ortenzi is a Toronto writer who took a 15-year hiatus from editorial work to become a professional chef. She has cooked at a number of Distinguished Restaurants of North America (DIRONA) and returned to writing full-time in 2004. Her work has been published in business, news and lifestyle magazines.

Customer Reviews

Lots of little mistakes. Other books are better! Good Biogs.
`the food encyclopedia' by Jacques L. Rolland and Carol Sherman with `other contributors' is published by the Canadian publisher, `Robert Rose, Inc.', a specialist in culinary volumes with `Bible' or `Encyclopedia' in their titles. Some of these volumes, by their sheer size and volume of information, such as the `Food Substitution Bible' by David Joachim are genuinely worthy of their pretentious titles. With this volume, one should start to question its authority as soon as you see it's falsely modest all lower-case title.

The long and the short of it is that any book of this size and cost, with it's `encyclopedic' pretensions is asking you to take it as an authority on its subject. Lamentably, with about a third of the articles I read, the authority of this book is simply laughable.

The most serious problems are simple factual errors. For example, in the article on the `metric system', it states that a centimeter is 100 millimeters long. A centimeter gets the 100 in its name from being a 1/100th of a meter, being only 10 millimeters long, a millimeter being 1/1000th of a meter. Other errors are just a bit subtler, as when in the article on `sodium', it is described as a `mineral'. This in itself is mistaken, as sodium, a very highly reactive metal, simply never occurs alone in nature. It has none of the properties of any mineral, which are generally compounds of a metal and a non-metal. The article compounds the error by saying its mineral name is `halite'. This is the name of common salt or sodium chloride. An even more serious howler is in the article on `nitrate', which is described as an `organic' compound. All, I say ALL compounds identified with the name `nitrate', such as sodium nitrate, ammonium nitrate, calcium nitrate, and on and on, are INORGANIC compounds!

These two gross errors found after reading no more than a dozen articles reduces my faith in the technical accuracy of the book to a minimum.

The cover of the book brags about having entries on 8,000 ingredients, tools, techniques, and people. Regarding ingredients, I find a lot of variability in the articles. In an `encyclopedia', I would expect that every article on a distinct plant or animal would include the scientific name of it. There may be some vague rule at work here, but it doesn't make any sense to me to give the scientific name for New Zealand spinach, but do not give it for `nigella seeds' (or more accurately, the plant from which nigella seeds are harvested).

On `tools', I find the book incomplete, but possibly not totally useless. There is an article for `China cap', but none for `chinois', or even any reference to `chinois' in the `China cap' article. I'll give our editors a small pass on this one, as the `Larousse Gastronomique' has an article on `chinois', but none on `China Cap' (and I do believe there is a small difference between the two).

But this brings up an important question. If you do not already own a copy of the `Larousse Gastronomique', the foremost authority on European cooking knowledge, why would you spend a sizable amount of money on this flawed book when for about half again the price, you can get a true authority.

This is not the end of the problems for this tome. One of its very best attributes is its sidebar articles of culinary biographies. I find the effort spent on this feature has given us an excellent selection of subjects, with practically no lightweight celebrities included. For example, it's longest biographies, including photographic portraits, are reserved for the most important 20th century culinary figures, such as the great American triad, James Beard, Craig Claiborne, and Julia Child. Among other American culinary notables, we get Alice Waters, Ruth Reichl, M. F. K. Fisher, Jacques Pepin, Paul Prudhomme, Harold McGee, Irma Rombauer, Pierre Franey, and Ella Eaton Kellogg. The last is interesting because neither her husband, John Harvey Kellogg, the founder of the Kellogg's food company nor other famous American food entrepreneurs such as H. J. Heinz or Milton Hershey are profiled. I was especially pleased to find articles on two Elizabeth David protégés, Jane Grigson and Alan Davidson, as well as the influential American expatriate writer, Richard Olney.

The selection is based almost entirely on those who have had an intellectual impact on American culinary habits. Thus, Waters and Prudhomme are in, but there is no mention of Wolfgang Puck, Emeril Lagasse, Bobby Flay, or any other `Food Network' fave. There is not even any mention of the Food Network, which may have been an oversight. But even this very nice feature has its flaws. Three oversights should tell the tale. The article on Jacques Pepin cites his years at Howard Johnson's test kitchen, but says nothing of this fact about Pierre Franey, even though Pepin was Franey's subordinate at this company. The article on the very much alive Diana Kennedy gives her date as `early 20th century'. The article on Julia Child gives the impression that Madame Child first enrolled in cooking school while living in the United States, and it was not for several years after that when she and her husband went to work in Paris. In fact, the two were married in 1946, moved to Paris in 1948, where Julia almost immediately enrolled in `Le Cordon Bleu'.

Overall, this book shows a dismal lack of editing and accuracy. Save your money for better books such as 'Larousse' or Alan Davidson's 'The Oxford Companion to Food' or 'The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America'.

If You Pass the Test, You don't Need the Book
THE FOOD ENCYCLOPEDIA:
Over 8,000 Ingredients, Tools, Techniques and People

By Jacques L. Rolland and Carol Sherman and contributors


This work is a one-volume collection, 700 pages, with countless helpful, colorful illustrations. This collection is arranged alphabetically with cross referencing. Many carry entries for additional information. This book is one you will keep close to your desk.

Chances are you are not comfortable with each of these entries. Test yourself:

* What is accoub?

* What is amlou made from?

* Where would you find bara brith?

* Had any Bath chaps lately?

* How would you serve bottarga?

* How would you use buffalo berries?

* Where would you likely order cala?

* What would you do with a cazuela?

* Ever heard of a charcoal biscuit?

* What's another name for a chinquapin?

* When would you serve ciecamarito?

* What is a comal?

* Can you name nine different curry paste types?

* What is "blue rare?"

* What does the number, "86" mean to a bartender?

* What's another name for an elver?

* How would you use gianduja?
* What is Gueuze?

* How would you use joja santa?

* Can you tell some of the background of Madhur Jaffrey?

* How do you make mugwumps?

* If you order "omakase" what do you get?

* What is a pissaladiere?

* What's another name for a Fiddlehead?

* Do you realize there are 22 names for sugar types?

* What is toucinho?

* And. What is zhug?

If you can answer all these questions, you probably don't need The Food Encyclopedia.

A treasure trove of historical and culinary detail.
This is no casual consumer's guide, but an in-depth reference appropriate for college-level culinary school holdings and many a public lending library's reference collection. Over 8,000 ingredients, tools, techniques and people are profiled in an alphabetical reference defining cooking terms, ingredients, foreign ingredients and more. Many have cross-references and multiple spellings, and there's a healthy dose of culinary history in addition to tips on techniques and over a hundred biographies for prominent food people in the industry, both well known and lesser-known. Cooks seeking a serious all-in-one reference will find this a treasure trove of historical and culinary detail.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch