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Summary
Summary
There are many great reasons to eat vegetarian meals -- they're low in saturated fat, high in fiber, and chock-full of nutrients. But the considerable health benefits aside, gourmets often scoff at the likes of seitan and tofu, while vegans despair of dull, uninspired offerings. Until now. In The Voluptuous Vegan , Myra Kornfeld introduces creative, mouthwatering, truly voluptuous recipes that inject this incredibly healthy cuisine with a much-needed dose of culinary mastery, including:
* full, balanced menus with appetizer, main course, and side dishes
* a luscious array of soups and an ingenious selection of desserts
* invaluable information on terms, ingredients, and techniques
* a culinary world tour including Latin America, Asia, Africa, and the Middle Fast, as well as Europe and the United States
Author Notes
Myra Kornfeld trained at the Natural Gourmet Cookery School and Peter Kump's. She cooked innovative vegan cuisine for years at New York's famed Angelica Kitchen and rounded out her training at La Cote Basque, Nosmo King, and Verbena. She has contributed recipes and articles to such magazines as Natural Health , Vegetarian Times , and Yoga Journal , among others, and is co-creator of the remarkably successful videos Absolutely Tofu and Absolutely Tofu II . She is an instructor at the Natural Gourmet cookery School.
George Minot, a writer based in New York City, is currently working on a novel. He has studied Asian healing traditions and is involved with the natural foods community.
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Formerly in charge of daily specials and desserts at New York's vegetarian Angelica Kitchen, Kornfeld manages to bring new life to the vegan palate in this better-than-average collection of animal-product-free food. The book starts off with the usual general instructions, but the level of detail is a pleasant surprise: not only do the authors (Minot is a New York City-based writer) explain cooking equipment and appliances, they also provide instructions for cutting vegetables into half-moons, quarter-moons, matchsticks and so forth. This tendency to go the extra mile pops up in the recipes, too, almost all of which are accompanied by tips, things to watch out for, and ingredient definitions. More important, the recipes are tasty. Plenty of vegetarian cookbooks contain recipes for squash soup, but few of those are made with coconut milk, lime juice, basil, leeks and shallots like Kornfeld's Butternut-Lemongrass Soup. The book contains only three chapters: one on soups, one on desserts, and one with the recipes organized into menus (for example: Warm Chickpea Salad with Artichokes and Sun-Dried Tomatoes followed by Fresh Corn, Millet, and Rice Croquettes, Jalape¤o-Potato-Tofu "Cream" and Olive Tapenade). The authors explore the usual ethnic vegetarian territory but turn up new ideas, like Arepas and a complex Moussaka. Many of these items use soy products as substitutes, like Shepherd's Pie with a tempeh filling, Seitan Bourguignonne, and Herbed Ravioli with Porcini Pesto and Tofu "Ricotta." As definitive proof that vegans don't have to give up rich desserts, the final chapter includes a Chocolate Pudding Tart and Chocolate Coconut Cake with Chocolate Fudge Frosting. This volume should delight vegans looking to satisfy their gourmet tastes. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Booklist Review
Vegetarian cooking appeals to those conscious of food's many physiological effects on the human body. Some follow a vegetarian diet out of fear; others embrace it joyfully, finding vegetarianism's principles deeply satisfying to more than merely physical hunger. But finding a useful, reliable, vegetarian cookbook can prove more daunting than clinging to a no-meat regimen at the Texas state fair. Some vegetarian cookbooks eschew meat and dairy products completely--no fish, no eggs, no cheese. Other books allow dairy products, following the rubric "If it doesn't look back at you, you may eat it." At the beginning of fall, when the nation's seasonal gardens are overflowing with their accustomed annual bounty of sweet corn, tomatoes, berries, squashes, root vegetables, and fruits, vegetarianism makes a very viable diet. Being vegetarian in February may not be as problematic as once it was, but it's still not a time to discover food's optimum flavors. The Modern Vegetarian Kitchen, by Peter Berley with Melissa Clark, follows vegetarian principles, but Berley readily concedes that not every person's constitution is equipped to follow this diet resolutely. Thus, he offers recipes that include meat substitutes such as tempeh and seitan, but he dresses them carefully to ensure a full complement of flavor components. His Seitan Bourguignonne contains virtually identical ingredients to its classic provincial French model but without beef and bacon. Similarly, except for the substitution of seitan for lamb, Berley's shepherd's pie could pass for a well-seasoned version of the genuine article. Berley's experiences with macrobiotic cookery show in his love of Japanese ingredients such as burdock root. Thus, he generates new audiences for ancient Eastern vegetables. Currently popular foods attract Berley's attention, too. Polenta, a North Italian staple of boiled cornmeal, gets a healthy twist by substituting millet for the customary cornmeal and mellowing out with pureed sweet potato. As a brunch presentation, Spinach-Mushroom Quiche's crust gains texture from oats and sesame seeds. The book wisely follows the seasons in order to take full advantage of vegetables at the height of their ripeness. This focus on flavor helps keep vegetarians on track and also helps decrease yearnings for foods outside the diet's strictures. Leave it to chef Stephan Pyles to accomplish the seemingly impossible. His Southwestern Vegetarian (with John Harrisson) takes the cuisine of a territory universally famed for whole hog barbecues and ox roasts and produces recipes observing vegetarianism's tenets. He achieves his goal by first reaching into the wealth of salsas produced through Mexican cooking's influence on the Southwest. Moles, both green and red, flavor a wealth of grilled vegetable combinations. Squash and corn provide backbone for a number of soups. Smoked salmon and horseradish mashed potatoes violate the strictest vegetarian rules, but the attraction of this combination can't be denied. Canyon Cowboy Beans with Mexican corn bread provide complete protein building blocks to ensure proper nutrition within vegetarian confines. The success of Pyles' cuisine relies on his talented sophistication in bringing together many traditions. Just the name Poblano-Dried Fruit Risotto Cakes with Green Mango-Habanero Jam bespeaks a symphonic genius in handling both flavors and culinary traditions. The tyro vegetarian, particularly the teenage one rebelling against the dominant "burger culture," will relish the irreverent tone of Evelyn Raab's delightfully illustrated The Clueless Vegetarian. Raab assumes the posture of a teacher whose audience knows virtually nothing about vegetarian cooking but who believe it may be an appropriate choice for their lives. Raab takes care to define terms and to present recipes that presuppose no prior cooking experience. Her recipe classification system, rendered in icons, will also attract the computer-minded young adult. Despite her simple approach, Raab's recipes reflect a range of cooking styles and cater to today's multiethnic tastes with an emphasis on Italian and Mexican dishes and such Eastern exotica as pad Thai. So eager is she to expand her readers' horizons that she gives extensive instructions on managing the intricacies of phyllo pastry, a base for many Middle Eastern appetizers and entrees. Vegans, the most disciplined of vegetarians, consume neither dairy products nor eggs. They have to watch their diets particularly carefully to avoid protein deficiencies. Myra Kornfeld explores this regimen in The Voluptuous Vegan, determined that such a diet need not mean bland cooking. Her Mushroom, French Lentil, and Chestnut Ragumakes a rich, satisfying entree, and she manages to create a shepherd's pie using tempeh and zucchini under a blanket of potatoes mashed with horseradish. Although some people are attracted by vegetarianism's ethical and health claims, others argue that the central principle of good eating is that foods be organic, raised without pesticides or chemically enhanced fertilizers. Jesse Ziff Cool's Your Organic Kitchen has recipes including red meats, but her emphasis on organic produce skews her toward a diet lower in meat use than customary. Her recipes, arranged by seasons, attract with smart, simple ideas such as enhancing ordinary creamed peas and potatoes with Gorgonzola and chives. When it comes to a beverage suitable for vegetarians to enjoy at mealtime, what could be more appropriate than wine? It's an ancient drink, its health benefits have been know since biblical times, it contains no animal products, and it's nearly universally available to adults. British oenophile Oz Clarke has produced a new primer on wine that combines some of the best approaches from previous books into a highly useful reference. Oz Clarke's Introducing Wine groups all wines into fifteen categories that define each one's major characteristics. Well-structured tables organize additional data for easy accessibility. Shunning the high-flown language of many books for the wine novice, Clarke teaches practical, useful terms and techniques that demystify without sacrificing pleasure. His approach benefits further from a nonexclusionary stance that embraces equally all the world's wines, not just those from France, Italy, and California. All but the most disciplined vegetarians relish sweets of any sort, especially desserts. Maria Bruscino Sanchez follows her two earlier treatises on Italian cakes and cookies with Sweet Maria's Italian Desserts. Although most dinners in Italy typically close with fresh fruit, the Italian kitchen has produced beloved dessert classics on the order of cannoli, cheesecake, and gelato. Visitors to Sicily remember fondly the pound cake and ricotta layers of cassata spiked with local liqueur and robed in dark chocolate. More spectacular still are those Italian cakes based on devastatingly rich chestnuts blended with cream and served with flourless cake turned ebony with massive amounts of bittersweet chocolate. The Italians have also perfected a dessert called semi-freddo, a "half-frozen" version of ice cream much less laborious to prepare at home. Sanchez's apricot-almond version may convert even the most obstinate gelato mavens. In similar vein, Bruce's Bakery Cookbook offers recipes from Bruce Zipes' eponymous Long Island bakery. Zipes makes his own riffs on standard dessert items. For example, he ensures an ultratender crumb in his pound cake by insisting on confectioners' sugar in the batter. His Linzer torte improves the Viennese original with a layer of fresh red raspberries. Irish Soda Bread, normally innocuous, secures significant texture from whole-wheat flour and a sprinkling of currants, not to mention a flavor boost from caraway seeds. Lemon Meringue Pie, an American favorite, has a layer of sponge cake between the rich filling and the airy meringue to keep the meringue from disintegrating as rapidly as it might otherwise.
Library Journal Review
"Voluptuous" is going a bit far, but Kornfeld's recipes are indeed far from the bland, dreary food often associated with a vegan diet. The author, who worked for six years at Angelica Kitchen, a well-known New York vegetarian restaurant, is a knowledgeable cook, and her recipes are inspired by a variety of cuisines. While dishes like Seitan Picadillo are unlikely to appeal to those used to the real thing, other recipes would certainly please nonvegetarians, too. Anyone following a vegan diet will welcome this book happily; for all vegetarian collections. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
