Edible
2 total works
From almonds and pecans to pistachios, cashews and macadamias, nuts are as basic as food gets – just pop them out of the shell and into your mouth. The original health food, the vitamin-packed nut is now used industrially in confectionery and in all sorts of cooking. The first book to tell the full story of how nuts came to be in almost everything, Nuts takes readers on a gastronomic, botanical and cultural tour of the world.After tackling the surprisingly difficult problem of defining a nut – some foods we think of as nuts are actually seeds and some are fruits – award-winning food writer Ken Albala provides a fascinating account of how nuts have been cooked, prepared and exploited through history and around the world, from cultivation and harvesting to processing and consumption – or non-consumption, in the case of those with nut allergies. With scrumptious recipes, surprising facts and fascinating nuggets inside, this entertaining and informative book will delight lovers of almonds, hazelnuts, chestnuts and more.
Round, thin and made of starchy batter cooked on a flat surface, the pancake is a food that goes by many names: crepes, flapjacks and okonomiyaki, to name just a few. This treat is a treasured food the world over, and now Ken Albala unearths the surprisingly rich history of pancakes and their sizzling goodness. Pancake traverses over centuries and civilizations to examine the culinary and cultural importance of pancakes in human history. From the Russian blini to the Ethiopian injera, Albala reveals how pancakes have been a perennial source of sustenance from the Greek and Roman eras to the Middle Ages through to the present day. He explores how the pancake has gained symbolic currency in diverse societies as a comfort food, a portable victual for travellers, a celebratory dish and a breakfast meal. This book also features a number of delicious historic and modern recipes tracing the first official pancake recipe to a sixteenth-century book. "Pancake" is a witty and erudite history of a well-known food favourite.