The Hungry Reader

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

The New York Sun

Wandering through a produce aisle or a farmer’s market is not always a rapturous experience. Too many choices can lead to paralysis rather than inspiration. Just what is that strange striped zucchini good for? And what do I do with a lemon cucumber?


Barbara Kafka’s new cookbook can save you. The veteran author of dozens of cookbooks, including the groundbreaking “Roasting” and “Soup: A Way of Life,” Ms. Kafka has a reassuring ability to separate the wheat from the chaff – and the frisee from the endives. Her latest offering, “Vegetable Love” (Artisan, $35), is a doorstop of a cookbook with more than 750 recipes for common (artichokes and zucchini) and uncommon (nettles and cactus paddles) vegetables dishes, both with and without meat.


It’s an impressive distillation of her decades of experience as a food authority. “I always say [writing a cookbook] takes ‘X’ number of years plus the rest of your life. You don’t come to a book as a blank slate. I come to a book with a point of view and an attitude and recipes,” Ms. Kafka told me.


Ms. Kafka’s books are known for their thoroughness and insight, and that takes time – she spent seven years writing “Vegetable Love.” “I’m a maniac. I start, and I think, ‘Oh, there’s a little book to be written here. Then I realize that it’s not a little book anymore,” she said.


If some cookbook authors seduce with rapturous descriptions of sizzling butter and perfumed peaches, Ms. Kafka has commanded respect with her precise instructions. Her recipes are clear, and they work.


She’s also not afraid to be a little eccentric and opinionated, freely expressing her hatred of dilly beans and split pea soup while coming up with unexpected dishes like morels with rhubarb and asparagus.


So when Ms. Kafka called for microwaving Chinese eggplants to make her stuffed eggplant recipe, I decided to try it, even though this was a significant leap of faith for someone who has used the microwave only to reheat food. And she didn’t let me down. The eggplant emerged succulent, soft, and even crispy from a quick jaunt under the broiler. The timing of “Vegetable Love” couldn’t have been more fortuitous. The USDA now recommends five to nine servings of fruits and vegetables a day – a daunting standard even for those who like Brussels sprouts. Ms. Kafka sees her book as a useful ally: “They’re not going to get [to that goal] without me!”


And though the book itself is an ambitious undertaking, the recipes themselves certainly aren’t. Curried lima beans involve little more than sauteing onion and curry powder in butter, then adding lima beans, lemon juice, and salt, but the flavors are surprisingly satisfying.


The chapters are divided into sections based on their area of origin – for personal as well as educational reasons. “I do deeply believe that we learn about cultures and how they develop by what grows normally in that space,” Ms. Kafka said. It’s illuminating to learn that Italians can’t rightly claim tomatoes or polenta as their own; both ingredients came from the New World.


Likewise, Ms. Kafka places broccoli and cauliflower in the same chapter to highlight their botanical and culinary connection. “Related kinds of vegetables can do similar things in the kitchen and on the palate,” she noted. That kind of insight encourages casual improvisation in the kitchen.


The abundance of knowledge in the book can be a bit overwhelming. The nuts-and-bolts information about each vegetable – its appearance, taste, storage, basic preparation, and compatibility with other flavors – is all at the end of the book, in a separate “Cook’s Guide.” That means plenty of flipping back and forth.


She also occasionally misses a trick. In the chapter on carrots, she offers carrot ice cream and sorbet as the only dessert options, but she misses out on classic carrot cake with cream cheese frosting. And though she asserts that ripe Haas avocados should be dark green and never be brown or black on the outside, I’ve never had a good avocado whose skin wasn’t a muddy shade.


Still, here are many usable recipes and much advice straight from the gut. Ms. Kafka said she wants her books to read with as much clarity as a manual. What a relief that they do.


The New York Sun

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