The Produce Bible: Essential Ingredient Information and More Than 200 Recipes for Fruits, Vegetables, Herbs & Nuts

I was attracted to this book by the beautiful photograph on the cover and the appeal of a quick reference manual. Sometimes I wonder what the difference is between a Meyer lemon and my everyday supermarket lemon, or perhaps the short history of the pear. Now I have a place to find these answers. This book will give you a basic overview of many common fruits, vegetables, nuts, and herbs in 1-3 page sections, followed by a handful of recipes incorporating the particular produce of interest. The recipes vary greatly - some are for sweet dishes, others savory. Based on a cursory look at various recipes, most are fairly easy, though some will call for less commonly found ingredients. There are definitely some good recipes in here though. The layout of the book is straightforward with some really beautiful photographs. The text is large and easily readable. Recipes are cross-referenced (e.g. mango recipes are in the mango section, but a footnote also tells you of the recipes in other sections that use mango as an ingredient). There are omissions - you won't find every type of produce imaginable, just a hundred of the most common things (If you want to know all about persimmons, you are out of luck). I would have liked more produce info and a few less recipes (or even no recipes). As my other reviews explain, I'm more of a baker than a food cooker, but the information in this book will help either type of food cooking addict. It would be even better if it had some heavy metal madness interjected.

This book has a lot of useful information and will be a help in working with produce.