Cook's Ingredients (Rd Home Handbooks)
Adrian Bailey, wine-magazine editor, food journalist, and  author of several cookbooks, brings the culinary know-how; and Philip  Dowell, contributor to theTime/Life Foods of the Worldseries,  furnishes the photographic excellence for this innovative and useful  food guide.  The setup is elegantly attractive and extremely  practical. Part I is all pictures (Dowell spent more than a year  collecting the color plates), with similar food items (usually  life-size) shown together on one page for easy comparison. Divvied up  among a number of food categories--such as herbs, oil, cheese, and  vegetables, dried pulses, fruit, baking goods, and pasta, fish,  poultry, game, and sausages, coffee, tea, and alcoholic drinks--each  pictured ingredient is followed by a brief but informative paragraph  explaining its origin, uses, and flavor. Take "galangal." It's  identified as the ground, dried root of a Chinese plant,  ginger-peppery in taste, and used in curries and liqueurs.Part II is the text reference section, wherein each spice, seaweed and  pickle, each grain, lamb cut and liqueur is categorized and  described. Followed by a comprehensive index, this pictionary of foods  was clearly created with dedication and love, to instruct, assist, and  gratify the food enthusiast. With 200 pages of sumptuous color  photographs and 100 pages of supportive text covering 2,000 cooking  ingredients, Philip Dowell's and Adrian Bailey's kitchen reference is  a culinary godsend, a scholarly success, and a work of art.--Stephanie Gold--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.