50 Foods: The Essentials of Good Taste

In his elegantly composed, alphabetically organized primer on the most tasty ingredients in good cooking, Behr, the founder of the Art of Eating magazine, shares useful ways of growing, choosing, and pairing foods with other foods and, especially, wines. Based in Vermont and evidently well traveled in Italy and France, Behr is also a knowledgeable and experienced vegetable gardener himself. He champions a holistic approach; as he notes with regards to honey, “What is treated least is usually best” (a statement that could be his mantra). He seems to like strong, straightforward tastes, like anchovies, brown country bread, Camembert cheese, chestnuts, goose, and plums. He has some interesting biases, preferring green asparagus over white, including an entry for boletes but none for garlic, and favoring French thin young green beans from his garden that he prefers not to undercook. He also likes Tuscan olive oil above others, and his wine admonitions for each food are frankly not that helpful: “Plain eggs aren’t flattered by wine”; “Nearly everyone agrees that most cheeses taste much better with white wine than with red”; and “A simple roast chicken is a gift to many wines.” Behr takes an almost scientific approach to taste, with his use of Latin names and disinquisitions on starch, tannins, sugars, and fats, and, refreshingly, he’s not too snobby to include other expert’s views, such evaluating apple varieties or explaining the West Coast way to open an oyster (at the rounded edge) versus his way, at the hinge. The book is certainly a welcome resource for the home chef. (Nov.)