Jane Grigson's Vegetable Book

by Jane Grigson

Book Overview

In Jane Grigson's Vegetable Book American readers, gardeners, and food lovers will find everything they've always wanted to know about the history and romance of seventy-five different vegetables, from artichokes to yams, and will learn how to use them in hundreds of different recipes, from the exquisitely simple "Broccoli Salad" to the engagingly esoteric "Game with Tomato and Chocolate Sauce." Jane Grigson gives basic preparation and cooking instructions...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0140463526
• ISBN13: 9780140463521
• Release Date: July 1981
• Publisher: Penguin Group
• Length: 624 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Necessary for any Foodie Library. Buy It!

`Jane Grigson's Vegetable Book' by the leading English culinary writer, recently deceased, Jane Grigson is ample evidence that the greatest legacy left to the culinary reading world by the great Elizabeth David is the tradition of English food writing, of which Grigson is the most brightly shining star. The tradition includes such diverse other writers as Nigella Lawson, Nigel Slater, Tamasin Day-Lewis, Claudia Roden, Antonio Carluccio, and the irrepressible Jamie Oliver. Short of Elizabeth David's own books, I can think of no better armchair culinary treat than Grigson's larger books such as her `English Food', `Jane Grigson's Fruit Book', `Good Things' and this title on vegetables. It is very easy to see the value of this book, as there are a number of excellent vegetable cookbooks easily available to us today. In spite of the number, most of the best books by the likes of James Peterson, Jack Bishop, Barbara Kafka, Alice Waters and Faith Willinger are mostly simply collections of recipes. Some, such as Bishop and Willinger's works, are even limited to Italian vegetables and recipes, although that subject is certainly large enough for a whole bookshelf of volumes. The best book with which to compare Grigson's work is Elizabeth Schneider's `Vegetables from Amaranth to Zucchini', which covers 131 different species or groups of species, while Ms. Grigson covers 71 named vegetables and vegetable families (both authors cover more than one species in many of their articles). Part of the difference is that Ms. Schneider includes articles on twelve (12) mushroom species, while Ms. Grigson has her own separate book on mushrooms. Another difference is that Ms. Grigson includes much more culinary information, both general advice, techniques, and recipes, than does Ms. Schneider. The biggest difference is in the general tone of the two books. Ms. Schneider's work is clearly based on the German-influenced American style of reference book where the premium is in matter-of-factness and completeness. To that end, Ms. Schneider certainly has the superior book when you may want to track down a fact about a vegetable, but if you simply want to find out as much as you can about cooking in as enjoyable manner as possible, you simply must get Ms. Grigson's book. And... the fact that Jane Grigson's Penguin paperback book costs about one-fifth of Ms. Schneider's hardback tome is no small concern. A small sample of the kind of rare and enchanting detail you will find in Grigson is the following quote on Lettuce and Lettuce Salads. "In his carved chapel at Karnak, the pharaoh Senusret I, of the Middle Kingdom, offers the god Min two flasks of milk. Min raises a smooth arm against the background of three tall lettuces in detailed relief. They stand on a grid that is thought to represent the filed they are growing in. For the Egyptians, Min was the ithyphallic god of increase. Lettuces were sacred to him, perhaps because of the `straight vertical surge' of their growt