The Essential Good Food Guide: The Complete Resource for Buying and Using Whole Grains and Specialty Flours, Heirloom Fruit and Vegetables, Meat and Poultry, Seafood, and More

567 Pages·2013·8.46 MB·English

by  Margaret M. Wittenberg

Copyright © 1995, 2007, 2013 by Margaret M. Wittenberg
Photographs copyright © 2013 by Jennifer Martiné All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Ten Speed Press, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a
division of Random House, Inc., New York.
www.crownpublishing.com
www.tenspeed.com
Ten Speed Press and the Ten Speed Press colophon are registered trademarks of Random House,
Inc.
Previous editions of this work were published as Good Food: The Complete Guide to Eating Well by
The Crossing Press, Freedom, California, in 1995, and as New Good Food: Essential Ingredients for
Cooking and Eating Well by Ten Speed Press, in Berkeley, California, in 2007.
Instructions for cooking rice courtesy of the Carolina Gold Rice Foundation Library of Congress
Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file with the publisher
eBook ISBN: 978-1-60774435-1
Trade Paperback ISBN: 978-1-60774-434-4
Author photo by Kathy Weigand Photography Cover design by Sarah Adelman
v3.1
Contents
Introduction
Fruits and Vegetables
Grains, Flour, and Bread
Pasta and Noodles
Beans, Peas, Lentils, and Soy Products
Nuts and Seeds
Meat and Poultry
Seafood
Dairy Products and Eggs
Culinary Oils
Essential Seasonings
Sweeteners
Suggested Reading
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Index
Introduction
I am an intuitive cook. Put a variety of foods in front of me and I can
visualize how they might fit together, enhancing one another in terms of
flavors, textures, and presentation. Although some of my knack is likely
innate, much of it I developed through experience, by cooking,
observing, listening, and reading. In the process, I have learned a lot
about different foods, their history, how they are grown or produced,
their nutritional attributes, and the best methods for cooking them. I’ve
also learned a lot about how various foods affect one’s overall well-
being. Writing this book, then, has stirred up a lot of memories for me.
Each food I describe evokes the time and place when I first tried or
heard about it, and all the circumstances surrounding that experience.
Nourishing My Interests
My mother’s extraordinary cooking served as a backdrop to sharing the
day’s happenings at meals with my parents and five siblings. Sunday
breakfasts were my father’s realm. Inspired by my parents’ talents, I tried
my own hand at cooking, following recipes from my beloved Better
Homes and Gardens Junior Cook Book and also improvising on my own.
My interest in cooking reached a new level when, for a 4-H Club
meeting food demonstration project, I was assigned the task of
highlighting the visual differences between two cakes, one made with
baking powder and the other without. That a food could change so
dramatically by adding or deleting just one ingredient was utterly
fascinating to me, igniting what would be a lifelong enthusiasm for food
science and the interactions between foods and various ingredients.
When I met my husband, Terry, in 1974, we realized immediately that
we shared an interest in food. Starting with a visit to a local natural
foods co-op, Terry introduced me to many new foods, as well as to
familiar ones that, to me, were largely unrecognizable in their raw
forms. Take dried beans, for example. Although I had eaten plenty of
navy bean soup and pork and beans while growing up, that had been the
extent of my bean repertoire—and they were purchased precooked in
cans. While I knew I had a lot to learn, the beautiful, earthy colors and
various shapes of uncooked beans intrigued me, as did the many bins of
whole grains, nuts, and seeds. I knew I was hooked.
Terry was also the catalyst for my fascination with the nutritional
aspects of food. Because he’s an avid long-distance cyclist, often logging
more than ten thousand miles a year, using food as a source of
functional fuel has been just as important to him as the sensual pleasure
of eating. While hiking, Pilates, running, weights, and dance have also
figured into the picture for one or both of us throughout the years,
finding the best food choices for recovery from the long miles of cycling
along with maintaining overall vitality has been the biggest challenge—
and greatest reward—of eating a good food diet.
Fortunately for me, my love of food turned into a career. The start of
more than three decades of professional connection with food began
with Sunseed Natural Foods, a small natural foods store Terry and I
opened in West Bend, Wisconsin, during the fall of 1977. Along with the
challenges of introducing natural foods to a small, conservative
Midwestern town, we also had to learn the realities of running a
business. We thrived on the experience, which also got us connected
with our community. We sold beef, maple syrup, fresh eggs, and fresh
vegetables from a local organic farmer. And we also enjoyed a wide
variety of fresh culinary herbs and unique vegetables, like kohlrabi and
Jerusalem artichokes, that we bought from organic gardeners at our
small town’s farmers’ market. From teaching cooking classes to helping
customers in the aisles, for us it was all about sharing the great flavors,
fun, and health benefits of cooking with natural foods. It also laid a good
foundation for what was to come.
After selling our store at the end of 1980, Terry and I happened by the
first Whole Foods Market in Austin, Texas, just four months after the
store had opened for business. We were hired in January 1981 as two of
the company’s original twenty-five team members, sharing in the
excitement of being part of a new concept in grocery stores—a one-stop
shop where all the food was natural and minimally processed. In the
early years, beyond working in many different areas within the store, I
taught cooking classes, developed recipes, conducted food information
trainings, and wrote the company’s food-focused publication. The
remainder of my thirty-plus years with the company have included food
product and policy research along with coordinating the company’s
quality standards program.
Meanwhile, in the mid-1980s, I also had a one-year part-time stint as
the principal cook of the East West Macrobiotic Center in Austin, Texas,
where I honed my cooking skills, learning about balancing elements
within a meal and the very real effects food has on body, mind, and
spirit. In addition to teaching cooking classes, my main role was to
create and cook a wide variety of seasonal and ethnic-focused menus for
up to fifty guests for the lunches and one hundred for the monthly
Friday night dinners the East West Center offered (along with the
occasional Sunday brunches). There I mastered the art of cooking greens
and sea vegetables, as well as using seasonings and condiments to make
dishes sizzle with flavor.
For further inspiration, in the intervening years I took as many classes
as I could from many of my esteemed natural foods cooking teachers,
including Annemarie Colbin, Mary Estella, Susan Jane Cheney, Meredith
McCarty, Carole Goodman Price, and many others who traveled through
the Austin area. One of these classes spurred my interest in whole grain
sourdough baking. In 1992, I started my beloved whole wheat
sourdough starter and a couple years later a rye starter; both are still
going strong from weekly feedings and regular use to make amazing
sourdough breads, breadsticks, and muffins.
My interest in heirloom fruits, vegetables, beans, and grains also
began to flourish during this time; I experimented with any new variety I
could get my hands on. While on a trip to London, England, in 2003, I
discovered the extraordinary Borough Market, London’s oldest fruit and
vegetable market—still trading at the same location since 1755. While I
had been to all types of farmers’ markets in the United States, never had
I seen in one place such artistry, craftsmanship, and simple beauty