The Splendid Grain - Reviews
Kudos and Reviews
The Splendid Grain, a Book of Month's Good Cook Club Selection.
"I'm a big fan of Rebecca's and think of her with every grain I make." -- Kate Heyhoe, Executive Editor, Global Gourmet.
"Rebecca Wood's The Splendid Grain will inspire all cooks to explore the wide world of grains-it is an absolutely splendid book." --Charlie Palmer, chef/owner, Aureole; chef/co-owner, The Lenox Room and Alva, New York.
"The Splendid Grain is a much-needed encyclopedia of innovative grain recipes and lore-practical, useful, and stimulating." -- Dean Fearing, chef, The Mansion of Turtle Creek, Dallas.
Publisher's Weekly
This generous volume expands on other grains cookbooks
by embracing such unusual grains as sorghum and mesquite and by offering an exhaustive
collection of recipes for the grains it covers. Wood (Quinoa: The Supergrain)
organizes the grains by origin (e.g. rye and oats fall under "Native European
Grains"). Each grain discussed comes with a history and basic cooking and
storage instructions. The section on wheat includes an impressive list of unusual
and lesser-known flours (including Kamut and bolted flours) and a riff on pasta.
Recipes like Yellow and Purple Bean Tabbouleh (with hazelnuts), Barley Poppy
Bagels and Vietnamese Spring Rolls offer new takes on ethnic favorites. Others,
such as Chinese Greens with Quinoa and Peanuts, Mango and Wild Rice Salad and
Greens and Herbed Cornmeal Dumplings with Roasted Red Pepper Sauce combine flavors
in unusual ways. Breakfast choices are particularly strong, encompassing Buckwheat
Waffles with Peach Butter and Oat Groat Pancakes. Short notes give tips on techniques
(for example, how to french cut string beans) and commonsense substitutions for
exotica like buffalo meat.
Booklist, American Library Association
Health-conscious eaters value grains in their diets
for their low-fat, high-fiber merits. In the quest for new flavors, grains once
unknown or obscure have begun appearing on restaurant menus and in gourmet cooking.
Wood's latest cookbook sums up the current state of grain cookery and presents
dozens of recipes featuring grain as a principal component. Wood includes familiar
corn, wheat, rice, and barley, as well as newly available ancient grains, such
as amaranth, kamut, and quinoa. Those who normally bypass cookbooks such as this
one, assuming that they are for vegetarians only, will be pleasantly surprised
to find that Wood readily uses meats in conjunction with grains to create dishes
attractive to palates not exclusively vegetarian. Wood sorts recipes by the grains'
continent of origin, and she records both historical and cultural backgrounds
for each grain. Cooks without access to a natural foods store can use Wood's
catalog of mail-order sources. -- Mark Knoblauch
Chicago Tribune
A grains cookbook doesn't have to be too heavy
on vegetarian dishes. The Splendid Grain (Morrow, $30) by Rebecca Wood
demonstratesthe ability of grains to complement meat, fish and poultry. The book
breaks down grains into "bio-gregions" such as Native American, Asian,
Near Easter, European and African. (One of the more exotic listings is Job's
Tears, similar to barley. Unhulled, it has been used for prayer beads and necklaces.)
The 200-plus recipes are as diverse as the regions covered, providing ideas for breakfast (buckwheat pumpkin muffins), lunch (grilled turkey and short-grain brown rice salad) and dinner (gingered lamb and quinoa in phyllo). There also are recipes for many native breads (crunchy millet, coarse-grain sourdough rye, Ethiopian injera). A mail-order guide points you toward hard-to-find grains. -- Bob Condor
Christian Science Monitor
"No one knows better than Rebecca Wood how
popular grains have become in recent years. Each chapter in her new cookbook, The
Splendid Grain, begins with a brief history of a featured grain, taps the
mystique of lost cultures and foreign lands, then follows with tips oncooking,
storing, and even growing them. As rich as the text is in these introductions,
the recipes but history to work in the modern kitchen.
Quinoa, a savory South American kernel used by the Inca for many centuries before Spanish conquistadors banned its cultivation, makes a surprise appearance in a dessert that Ms. Wood calls Quinoa Butterscotch Brownies. To such staples as oats, rye, wheat, and rice, Wood adds Old World exotica like tef and sorghum. Although some dishes are complex, refreshingly simple recipes such as That Corn Dish bring the panobly of grains within delicious reach." -- Evan F. Mallett
Copley News Service
Don't think you need a grain guide? You haven't
met Rebecca Wood. She has put a spin on grains like no one before. Almost 400
pages are packed with everything anyone would ever want to know about grains
divided by the regions from which they come.
Sections include Native American Grains, with chapters on wild rice, corn, mesquite, amaranth and quinoa; Native Asian Grains, featuring buckwheat, millet, rice and Job's tears; Native Near Easter Grains, highlighting barley and wheat; Native European Grains focusing on rye and oats; and Native African Grains, detailing sorghum and tef.
After informative introductions about the grains and how best to prepare them, get ready for a wild ride. Wood--also author of Quinoa: the Super grain and The Whole Foods Encyclopedia--has created some stunning recipes. The book's subtitle rightly bills them as Robust, Inspired Recipes for Grains with Vegetables, Fish, Poultlry, Meat and Fruit.
Curried Corn and Coconut Sopup is a subtle symphony. Gingered Lamb and Quinoa in Phyllo is exquisite. Millet Madeleines with Crème Fraiche and Caviar is a rich treat. Barley, Fennel and Beet Salad is just the right innovative blend of ingredients.
Ditto for Couscous Marmalade Torte, which makes a wonderful dessert or coffeecake. The recipe is sugar- and fat-free, contains no eggs and takes just 15 minutes to prepare. The only difference is, Wood has been making the recipe-one of her family's favorites-for more than 20 years. -- Lisa Messinger, Food Editor
www.newhomemaker.com
Where
was I when The Splendid Grain won
the James Beard Foundation Award for Excellence and the International
Association of Culinary Professionals Julia Child Cookbook
Award? Usually I am waiting with bated breath to see who wins
these awards and I have read and digested all the cookbooks
in the running. It is like the Academy Awards for the cookbook
world. "The Splendid Grain" by Rebecca Wood did win the award
and deserved it. It is filled with text that engages and recipes
that have kept us cooking since I first discovered it about
three years after it came out.
My only excuse for not having found it earlier is that I had one year old twins who never slept and all I did was nurse, look about with bleary eyes and try to make noodles for the fifth night running. I guess The Splendid Grain would have been of no use to me then. I would have cried when I read it. All these recipes for bagels made with barley flour and Strawberry Blue Corn Waffles that I could not cook because I was on the floor baby-proofing the outlets or cleaning up oatmeal from the baseboards.
I read an article on bread by Laurie Colwin back before I had children. Wisdom wasted on the uninitiated. In it Laurie Colwin said that she found a bread cookbook when her daughter was young and she read it as fiction because that is what bread baking is to people with babies. This is not just to let me off the hook for missing a great cookbook when it came out but to say buy it even if you have no kitchen because it makes such a good read.
The recipes in "The Splendid Grain" are easier than they appear. I made bagels with my three kids and a few assorted extras over on play dates. We made the dough in a few minutes and then let it rise while we kept the dog from scaring one child and we forgot about the dough all together by the time the dog was on a leash and the child pacified. When we came back to the dough it had a strange gray color from the barley flour but this was a plus for the under seven set.
Making the bagel shapes was easy enough for three year olds. Boiling was fun and baking easy and we were done. The dozen were gone immediately. I had one that I split with my husband. They were an eerie Halloween gray but had a complex taste from the barley. I forgot about them in my rush to try the next recipe from The Splendid Grain. I was informed at school a few days later that my son's friend, the one who is scared of the dog, was never coming over again if I did not stop upstaging her mom by doing things like making these great homemade bagels. I guess they did not forget about the bagels for a while.
We made waffles, and breakfast cakes; winter squash potage was the hit of a Hanukkah party for which we promised to make Matzoh Ball soup but I just couldn't leave old Rebecca Wood to do it. No one missed the Matzoh Balls, and I make excellent Matzoh Balls. We had cornmeal mush instead of oatmeal. Real Vietnamese Spring Rolls are the plan for dinner tonight. She makes it look so easy. On the still-to-try list is a Rye and Cauliflower Casserole and Quinoa Soup Saigon Style.
The Apricot Millet Breakfast Cake is what brought the book to my attention. I would like to thank my friend Jeanie for the cake I finished before I could share it with the kids as intended. Jeanie was a chef and cake baker extraordinaire before kids. I trust her food judgment and envy her huge Hobart mixer and professional range. She gave us a piece of this cake as I was picking my son up from a play date. Jeanie showed me "The Splendid Grain." "You've seen this, right?" I hadn't. I wanted to borrow it but she wouldn't let it go--a sentiment I appreciated.
So I went out and bought the book. That was about six weeks ago. I slept with it next to my bed. Read all the fascinating information about each kind of grain and read the recipes, as Laurie Colwin taught me, as a good novel and not a cookbook. Then I started making grocery lists for all Rebecca Wood weeks. This has continued for at least a month and no one has stopped eating long enough to thank me. But I want to thank Jeanie publicly. This gift of "The Splendid Grain" does not raise her in my esteem, it simply reminds me of how highly she is held (even though she would not lend me her copy).
You do need to add a salad or some steamed vegetable to the all Splendid Grain menu. But no protein need be added as she has every combination of chicken, prawns, tofu, you name it in the recipes. It is just a little light on salads or some kind of green stuff.
I have a mind to call Rebecca Wood and thank her for this book. She researched so thoroughly and cooked so plentifully for us, her readers. Rebecca wood covered it all. Ancient food from the Americas to a Norwegian friend's mother's recipes. From macrobiotics to blinis with caviar and Christmas Hen. Normally I am wary of someone trying to cover the whole world and every grain. Things tend to get diluted and hodge-podgy. Not so in "The Splendid Grain." Each recipe is crisp and novel.
I am grateful. It is the week after Christmas as I am writing and Hanukkah has passed into the winter. I have been made aware this year of how the traditions I find around me all stress this time of year as a time to bring light and warmth into your heart in this darkest time of the year. Rebecca Wood's book feels like a warm hearth to me, and a good friend cooking for you. I am grateful that I am out of the dark woods of parenting early childhood. I am grateful to Jeanie for bringing this book and a lot more into my life. The Splendid Grain came to me through a warm friend and I have shared it with my friends over the winter. I am grateful for the feeling of warmth and the book that has helped inspire me to share it. -- Michelle Brode