Cook's Ingredients
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