Margaret Wittenberg’s New Good Food

I recently received a copy of New Good Food by Margaret Wittenberg as a gift, a book that I have admired for some time now, thumbing through display copies when the chance presented itself. As she notes in the book’s introduction, the author is a vice president of Whole Foods Market, so it is not surprising that I discovered it at our local Whole Foods, or that the store carries many of the less common food items she discusses. She begins the book by describing herself as “an intuitive cook” who can visualize how different ingredients play together in terms of flavor, texture, and presentation. She goes on to say (on page ix):

“Although some of my knack is likely innate, much of it I developed through experience, by cooking, observing, listening, and reading.”

The intent of her book is clear: to share this information with others, focusing on a wide range of ingredients that may be very traditional, but not all in the same culture. In just under 300 pages, this book is organized into 13 un-numbered chapters, with the following titles:

• Fruits and Vegetables

• Grains

• Whole Grain and Specialty Flours

• Breads

• Pasta and Noodles

• Beans, Peas, and Lentils

• Nuts and Seeds

• Culinary Oils

• Meat, Poultry, and Eggs

• Dairy Products

• Seafood

• Essential Seasonings

• Sweeteners

Each chapter begins with some general discussion of the topic at hand (for example, the Grains chapter includes a discussion of how much whole grain to prepare: 1 cup of uncooked grain is said to typically feed 2 to 4 people) and most of the chapters conclude with an “Exploring” section that gives brief descriptions of a wide range of ingredient varieties. For example, the section on “Exploring Pasta and Noodles” covers both the familiar, like Italian-style dried pasta, and the more exotic, like pastas made from Jerusalem artichokes, quinoa, and spelt. These descriptions range from a couple of sentences to about half a page. One of the really intriguing short descriptions is that of lotus root soba, a Japanese noodle that is characterized as having “a delicious nutty flavor and aroma similar to that of freshly cooked lotus root.”



One of the most interesting chapters is the penultimate one on “Essential Seasonings,” whose title left me expecting a discussion of spices. While the chapter does begin with four pages on salt, this is not followed by discussions of other “standard” flavoring ingredients like pepper, nutmeg, or tarragon, but instead goes into reasonably detailed treatments of miso, tamari and shoyu, umeboshi plums, and a variety of sea vegetables, including Irish moss, kombu, and sea beans. Besides describing these unusual edibles, the book gives brief but useful cooking instructions. To cook sea lettuce, for example, the book notes that “it’s best to combine it with other ingredients to minimize its slightly bitter taste.” Some of what I regard as more standard “seasoning ingredients” are discussed in the book, but mostly in the earlier chapter on “Fruits and Vegetables,” which devotes about a page and a half to fresh herbs and about four and a half pages to peppers, including tables describing both fresh and dried peppers.



In general, I like this book a lot, in part because of the range of unusual new (to me) foods it describes, including everything from lotus root (which I have seen but haven’t yet had the opportunity to taste) to edible flowers (nasturtiums are described as “sweet, mustardlike”), from teff (a gluten-free whole grain with extremely small seeds) to Tongues of Fire (an Italian bean, said to be a good addition to pasta dishes and soups), from birch syrup (really, from birch trees) to broccoflower (a cross between broccoli and cauliflower; I’m familiar with this one from when I lived in Switzerland: it’s delicious). Just reading through the descriptions makes me hungry and most curious. For example, the umeboshi plums I mentioned above are “made from sour, unripe fruits of the ume tree, which is native to China.” The description (on page 231) goes on to say that these fruits are closer to apricots than to plums (pluots, anyone?) and that their preparation is fairly intricate: they are pickled in sea salt for about a month, dried in the sun, other ingredients are added (dark red shiso leaves), they continue to soak, then they are finally aged in barrels for about a year. In addition, the brine from the plums is sold as umeboshi vinegar to be used as a condiment. Somehow, I have to find these things and try them.



The one potential shortcoming of the book – and this isn’t really a fault of the book, but just part of the challenge of exploring new tastes – is that my favorite flavor pairing book, The Flavor Bible by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg doesn’t have anything to say about a lot of the intriguing ingredients in New Good Food. In some cases, there are enough “near matches” that this isn’t a problem: while The Flavor Bible doesn’t have an entry for “broccoflower,” it does list both “broccoli” and “cauliflower,” so it shouldn’t be too difficult to look for compatible ingredients common to both lists and try them (for example, cheese is highly recommended for both, especially cheddar, Parmesan or goat cheese, as are unsalted butter, garlic, and lemon juice). The more challenging cases are things like sea beans and umeboshi plums, although a careful reading of both books does come to the rescue here. Specifically, in her chapter on “Essential Seasonings,” one reason that Wittenberg includes so many unexpected (to me, at least) “non-spice” flavorings is that she begins the chapter with a discussion of umami. This “fifth flavor” – in addition to the “standard four” many of us learned in school: sweet, salty, sour, and bitter – is commonly associated with things like mushrooms, ripe tomatoes, and cured ham. To this list, Wittenberg adds “sea vegetables, soy sauce, and miso,” and her chapter emphasizes “umami flavoring ingredients.” This provides the needed link to The Flavor Bible, which has an entry on “umami” (page 355), listing everything from anchovies to walnuts, including some of my favorite flavors of all time: aged Gruyere, clams, Asian fish sauce, lobster, oysters, pork, potatoes, sardines, meat-based sauces, dry-aged, grilled steaks, and truffles. (Now, I have definitely got to find some umeboshi plums to try …).

Finally, it is important to note that, while the flavor pairings are less extensive than those given in The Flavor Bible, Wittenberg’s book does include recommended pairings in many of her descriptions. For example, in her description of the gluten-free grain Job’s Tears, Wittenberg recommends ginger, parsley, onions and chives as flavor enhancers. Similarly, it’s good to know that Jacob’s Cattle Beans make “the basis for a simple salad when combined with fresh herbs and a splash of olive oil.” Hmm,…how about rau ram (Vietnamese coriander), the fresh herb described on page 17 as having a “spicy taste and aroma similar to those of lemon and coriander”?



It is clear that this is going to be a fun manuscript to munch my way through.

Why You Need Several Asian Cookbooks

I have been a big fan of Asian cooking for a long time, and a dish that my wife and I both like a lot is Pad Thai, described by Sharon Tyler Herbst’s Food Lover’s Companion as “Thailand’s most well-known noodle dish.” It came as an unpleasant surprise, then, to look through several Thai and Asian cookbooks that had a whole bunch of really great recipes, but no Pad Thai. The experience highlights one of two key reasons why it is important to have more than one Asian cookbook. The other reason has to do with finding unfamiliar ingredients.

The first reason it is important to have multiple cookbooks – for any cuisine you like, but especially for Asian cuisine – is that, as the Pad Thai example illustrates, your favorite cookbook for a particular cuisine may not have all of your favorite recipes from that cuisine. As a specific, non-Asian example, the movie “It’s Complicated” left us craving croque monsieur, which featured prominently in the story line. When we looked for a recipe in Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Simone Beck, Louisette Bertholle, and Julia Child, we were quite surprised not to find it there. Ultimately, we did find a very good recipe for croque monsieur in The Joy of Cooking, by Irma Rombauer, Marion Rombauer Becker, and Ethan Becker. Ironically, it turns out this book also has a Pad Thai recipe that we never thought to look for when we were craving it some weeks earlier. Because Asia is larger both geographically and culturally than European countries like France or Italy, the problem of finding all of your favorite Asian recipes is even more challenging than finding all of your favorite French or Italian recipes. Fortunately, there are some really excellent Asian cookbooks available, and I have listed three of them here, along with a fourth book to help with the ingredients problem.

My three current favorite Asian cookbooks – mostly acquired after the Pad Thai craving episode – are The Food of Asia (Murdoch Books, 2009), The Essential Asian Cookbook (Murdoch Books, 1997), and Culinaria Southeast Asia (Tandem Verlag, 2008). All three of these books are large format (roughly 8.5 by 11 inches), and lushly illustrated with color photographs of Asia, key ingredients, and the completed dishes. Also, each book covers the cuisines of a range of different Asian countries: Culinaria Southeast Asia focuses on Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia, The Food of Asia concentrates on China, India, Japan, and Thailand, and The Essential Asian Cookbook covers all of these countries, along with The Philippines, Laos and Cambodia, Vietnam, Korea, Pakistan, Burma, and Sri Lanka. Since Culinaria Southeast Asia does not discuss Thai cuisine, it is not surprising that Pad Thai does not appear there, but it is surprising that the dish does not appear in The Food of Asia, either, since that one does feature Thai cuisine. (That said, the “noodles and rice” section of the book is about 40 pages long and it includes a lot of fabulous dishes I had never heard of before, ranging from Thai “stir-fried noodles with holy basil” to “crossing-the-bridge noodles” from China.) Fortunately, there is an excellent Pad Thai recipe in The Essential Asian Cookbook, complete with a mouth-watering photograph of the finished product.

I mention the Pad Thai example, not as criticism of these excellent cookbooks, but to illustrate the nature of the problem: Asia is an enormous place with a long cultural history, so no single book, no matter how good, can hope to capture it all. The second reason you need more than one Asian cookbook is that having multiple sources can be an enormous help with the ingredients problem. In fact, this second problem has two important practical components: first, how to find an ingredient you don't have, and second, how to decide what to substitute if you just can’t find it anywhere. For example, since they both discuss Thai cuisine, both The Essential Asian Cookbook and The Food of Asia give brief descriptions of “holy basil.” In the glossary of The Essential Asian Cookbook, a main entry on “basil” begins by noting:

“Three varieties of basil are used in Asian cooking; all of which are very aromatic. If any are unavailable, substitute fresh sweet basil or fresh coriander in cooked dishes and fresh mint in salads.”

The entry then goes on to list the three types, including a color photograph of each, the name in Thai, and a brief description. The description of “purple or holy basil (bai kaphrao)” notes that it has “narrow, dark, purple-reddish tinged leaves with a pungent, clove-like taste.” The glossary entry in The Food of Asia is shorter, simply noting that “Holy basil is either red or green with slightly pointed, variegated leaves,” but it does refer to page 228 for more details; that description includes a color photograph, the Thai name “bai ka-phrao,” and the additional information that holy basil comes in both red and white varieties. This description accompanies a recipe for “chicken with crisp holy basil leaves,” described as “one of the most common dishes you will come across in Thailand.” In contrast, while The Essential Asian Cookbook gives the potentially very useful substitution information quoted above for holy basil – information I have not been able to find in The Food of Asia – it does not give a recipe for this “most common of Thai dishes.” So, if you want both Pad Thai and chicken with crisp holy basil leaves, you need both books. (The Joy of Cooking doesn’t list “holy basil” in the index).

Asian grocery stores – some of them quite good – are becoming more common, and this helps greatly with the problem of finding ingredients, but matching what you need with what is available can still be a problem. One factor that is both a complication and something of a simplification is the influence of Chinese culture on Asian cooking. This point is illustrated clearly by Culinaria Southeast Asia: although China is not one of the countries included, the book begins with a discussion of Chinese cooking in Singapore that features 32 color illustrations of different dim sum dishes, each with their anglicized Chinese names (e.g., “Zha nai huang bao: deep-fried dumplings filled with lotus paste, on a garnish of omelet and cucumber”). This is followed by a discussion of China teas (with photographs of nine different kinds, with the names in Chinese characters accompanying each photo) and then a discussion of traditional Chinese herbal medicines and more exotic treatments (dried sea horses, geckos, and monkey head fungi, anyone?), all as a lead-in to soups. In fact, throughout the Singapore section of the book, Chinese characters accompany almost all of the descriptions of dishes, ingredients, cooking utensils, and food art. The color photos of 16 exotic vegetables on pages 56 and 57 include brief descriptions in English, with the anglicized Chinese names and the name in Chinese characters. All of this can be extremely useful if you are looking for some unfamiliar ingredient in an Asian market: if your recipe calls for “bitter melon,” it may be useful to know that the Chinese name is something like either “foo gwa” or “ku gua.”

This last point is the reason that I also particularly like A Popular Guide to Chinese Vegetables, by Martha Dahlen and Karen Phillipps, which may be regarded as a book-length expansion of pages 56 and 57 from Culinaria Southeast Asia. Published by Crown Publishers in 1983, their little book (113 pages) appears to be out of print, but it is still available used through Amazon. Each entry includes a detailed color drawing to help you identify the vegetable, an anglicized Chinese name, and the corresponding Chinese characters, along with information on appearance and advice on selection and cooking. The book discusses about 70 vegetables, ranging from familiar types like lettuce and eggplant to more exotic species like “slippery vegetable” and “dracontomellum,” a little olive-like thing whose name is translated approximately as “man-in-the-moon fruit.” While the primary focus of this book is on identifying and selecting Chinese vegetables, it does include a few recipes with some of the descriptions. Two particularly interesting examples are those given in the “lotus root” entry: the one for “octo-pork soup" calls for “one small dried octopus, ½ pound of pork bones, and 6 to 10 inches of lotus root, well scrubbed.” The other recipe is for “braised pork and lotus,” and it calls for fermented red bean curd (naam yue), noting that if you don’t have any naam yue a possible substitute is equal parts dark and light soy sauce, “but the taste will be completely different.”

So far, I haven’t found the same advice in any of the other three cookbooks, highly as I reccomend them: that’s why you need a small collection.