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America—Farm to Table: Simple, Delicious Recipes Celebrating Local Farmers
Bestselling author and world-renown chef Mario Batali pays homage to the American farmer-from Maine to Los Angeles-in stories, photos, and recipes in AMERICA—FARM TO TABLE: Simple, Delicious Recipes Celebrating Local Farmers. Mario Batali, who knows the importance of ingredients to any amazing dish, sees farmers as the rock stars of the food world. In this new book he celebrates American farmers: their high quality products and their culture defined by hard work, integrity, and pride. Batali asked his chef friends from Nashville, Tennessee, to San Francisco, to tell him who their favorite farmers were, and those farmers graciously shared their personal stories along with their top-of-the-line produce and products.
In Seattle, Chef Matt Dillon introduces readers to Farmer Pierre Monnat, who produces fava beans and lamb. Batali then features those ingredients in such mouth-watering recipes as: Lamb Shank Sloppy Joes and Fava Bean Guacamole. In Washington, DC, Chef Jose Andres from Jaleo introduces us to Farmer Jim Crawford, who grows corn, broccoli, and strawberries Batali's accompanying dishes include: Chilled Sweet Corn Soup and Grilled Salmon with Strawberry Salsa. Other stops along the way include: Tampa; Austin; Nashville; Las Vegas; Los Angeles; New York, San Francisco; Portland, Maine; Chicago; Cleveland; Suttons Bay, Michigan; and Vail, Colorado. With over 100 superb recipes, this is the book that every home cook will want upon returning from the farmer's market or grocers.
In Seattle, Chef Matt Dillon introduces readers to Farmer Pierre Monnat, who produces fava beans and lamb. Batali then features those ingredients in such mouth-watering recipes as: Lamb Shank Sloppy Joes and Fava Bean Guacamole. In Washington, DC, Chef Jose Andres from Jaleo introduces us to Farmer Jim Crawford, who grows corn, broccoli, and strawberries Batali's accompanying dishes include: Chilled Sweet Corn Soup and Grilled Salmon with Strawberry Salsa. Other stops along the way include: Tampa; Austin; Nashville; Las Vegas; Los Angeles; New York, San Francisco; Portland, Maine; Chicago; Cleveland; Suttons Bay, Michigan; and Vail, Colorado. With over 100 superb recipes, this is the book that every home cook will want upon returning from the farmer's market or grocers.
352 pages, Hardcover
First published October 7, 2014
16 people are currently reading
499 people want to read
About the author
Mario Batali
74 books126 followersMario Batali is known to most people as both the star of the Food Network's Molto Mario and one of the Iron Chefs on Iron Chef America. Winner of numerous awards for his restaurants, Mario himself is the recipient of the 2005 James Beard All-Clad Outstanding Chef Award, the most prestigious cooking honor there is. Mario is also a huge NASCAR fan. Like many guys his age, Mario first discovered the thrill of stock car racing watching the ebullient Chris Economaki, in his Martian-style headphones, reporting live from the pit area at Daytona. Mario has been a more active racing fan these last few years, hosting prerace dinners at the track for the drivers. His restaurant Otto has become something of an unofficial hangout whenever NASCAR visits New York. He also enjoys prowling the infield to check out what die-hard racing fans like to cook on their grills, looking to pick up some down-home grilling tips. His next book, ITALIAN GRILLING, will be available from Ecco/HarperCollins in May 2008.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 30 reviews
December 13, 2017
Full disclosure: Foodie and Mario fan. Worth owning just for the recipe photography by Quentin Bacon (gotta love the name) alone.
November 23, 2014
Beautiful pictures but I would never make anything from this book.
November 17, 2017
If you are looking for real "Simple, Delicious Recipes Celebrating Local Farmers" look elsewhere. However if you are trained in the culinary arts, are comfortable following limited instructions for complicated recipes, and want to get a warm fuzzy feeling about helping local farms while incorporating a few of their products in a recipe then this book is for you! Did you know American farmers grow potatoes, beans AND sage? No? Well they do and you too can use them in your specialty recipes!
Having spent the last 6 years of my life living over 85% farm to table, working at a farm, and studying local food processing, I find this book a joke. The beautiful pictures and interesting farmer snapshots are what earned the second star, but the recipes are neither simple nor farm to table (unless you have another book called "how to prepare the products you find at the grocery store by hand from your local farmers products"). Real simple farm to table recipes are seasonal, locally based, and don't include ingredients with ingredients in them...
But in the authors defense, if we imagine the the Standard American Diet (SAD), it might be revolutionary that a recipe includes parsley that could be purchased from a local farm... So I guess more than anything this book raises the debate; What is farm to table American food? And how much do you have to buy directly from a farm to call a recipe farm to table?
In my personal opinion this book takes recipes that the Chief author likes and tries to show farmers growing select ingredients that are found in the recipe. I do not think these recipes get us closer to the farm, but only more confused about what real farm to table cooking is and pursuing grocery store shelves for items instead of farmers markets. I would call these recipes the "Frankenstein" child of farm food and 5 star restaurant food, charged with a trip to the grocery store. Its Alive!
But this is America and, as we know, you don't have to know what your are talking about or have any experience in a subject at all to... you know... sell a book or something... So if you like Mario Batali, I'm sure you will love his recipes in this book and get inspired by the beautiful pictures.
Having spent the last 6 years of my life living over 85% farm to table, working at a farm, and studying local food processing, I find this book a joke. The beautiful pictures and interesting farmer snapshots are what earned the second star, but the recipes are neither simple nor farm to table (unless you have another book called "how to prepare the products you find at the grocery store by hand from your local farmers products"). Real simple farm to table recipes are seasonal, locally based, and don't include ingredients with ingredients in them...
But in the authors defense, if we imagine the the Standard American Diet (SAD), it might be revolutionary that a recipe includes parsley that could be purchased from a local farm... So I guess more than anything this book raises the debate; What is farm to table American food? And how much do you have to buy directly from a farm to call a recipe farm to table?
In my personal opinion this book takes recipes that the Chief author likes and tries to show farmers growing select ingredients that are found in the recipe. I do not think these recipes get us closer to the farm, but only more confused about what real farm to table cooking is and pursuing grocery store shelves for items instead of farmers markets. I would call these recipes the "Frankenstein" child of farm food and 5 star restaurant food, charged with a trip to the grocery store. Its Alive!
But this is America and, as we know, you don't have to know what your are talking about or have any experience in a subject at all to... you know... sell a book or something... So if you like Mario Batali, I'm sure you will love his recipes in this book and get inspired by the beautiful pictures.
August 8, 2018
It is hard to rate this review of this cookbook. From the recipe side we gave this a low rating because most of the recipes took way to long to prepare and some ingredients were odd to find in our local grocery store. The food made however was all very flavor-filled and delicious. We all agreed if we went to a restaurant and these items were on the menu we would order them in a heartbeat. But since we don't have a professional Sous Chef or dishwasher we didn't want to make anymore recipes then we had to. We also did enjoy the short essays on the farmers and the chefs. A bonus for us is having one farm only 30 miles away. During the afternoon we enjoyed the sweet pepper and white bean soup, Moroccan carrot salad, zucchini fries with tomato aioli, chicken flautas with pickled jalapeno pico de gallo, cherry brown butter coffee cake, raspberry grapefruit popsicles, and focaccia panzanella.
October 31, 2017
This is a bit of a cheat...but I only read the vegetarian (or *almost* vegetarian) recipes. My friend bought this at a fundraiser bookfair for my school and let me borrow it for a bit. This book is beautiful (and is full of color photographs) and would make a great gift for any interested home cook who cooks/eats meat. I like the premise of farm to table cooking. Mario should do an all plant-based version of this book.
November 19, 2019
Beautiful photography and descriptions. This book was interesting, informative, and easy to read. Would love to try some of the recipes and visit some of the farms.
February 2, 2015
Full disclosure: I received this for free through a Goodreads' First Read's giveaway.
I entered this giveaway because of my boyfriend's love of cooking, and gifted it to him with the understanding that he would have to try out some of the recipes and give me a review.
The book is absolutely beautiful. The photography and layouts are exactly what one would want, and it is easy to navigate through. It is the perfect type of cookbook to gift to a foodie friend, because it isn't simply a list of recipes. This could be a coffee table book. These are some of the best attributes for it, however, because it does have some drawbacks, thus just the three stars.
One drawback of this cookbook is that it appears to be Mario Batali's Italian spin on American regional cooking. Maybe this is what he's about, but it takes away some authenticity from the specific regions, and makes it into something entirely different. When picking up this cookbook, both my boyfriend and I assumed it would be more true to either a specific American region or multiple regions, but it's not quite that. Now, if it had been presented as an Italian cookbook with a spin, or something of the sort, then it would have made sense. But the title, "America Farm to Table", sets an expectation that is not quite met.
Another thing about this cookbook is that it's not really healthy. Maybe my understanding of farm to table style cooking is incorrect, but I always assume it's going to be all about fresh ingredients. Lots of fresh greens and fruits, herbs and spices, and meats cooked in simple but tasty ways. This cookbook has a lot of recipes calling for frying different things, and that, yet again, is not what we expected. Fried foods can be delicious, sure, and fried foods deserve to have cookbooks. However, fried foods in a farm to table cookbook? Seems a bit off the mark. But hey, I'm not a food expert or a chef, so I'm sure there are plenty of others out there who will disagree with what I've just said. It's just one thing that stuck out about the cookbook that seemed odd.
The last point is both a positive and a negative. It's great that Batali has featured different regions, thus introducing recipes from a wide range of places in America. It allows one to try new things and to perhaps just add a twist to your own recipes. However, some of the ingredients called for are specific to a single region, which can make it difficult to find elsewhere. Or if it can be found, it isn't in the correct form or is just really expensive. This can make it difficult to try all of the recipes in the cookbook.
So to wrap it up, I would recommend this book as a gift to a foodie who is adventurous. This is good as a gift, but not as a practical every day cookbook, or even one that people will try multiple recipes from. This is a beautiful book that could easily be displayed, and I think that's all right, because it's entertaining in its own way, despite not being practical.
I entered this giveaway because of my boyfriend's love of cooking, and gifted it to him with the understanding that he would have to try out some of the recipes and give me a review.
The book is absolutely beautiful. The photography and layouts are exactly what one would want, and it is easy to navigate through. It is the perfect type of cookbook to gift to a foodie friend, because it isn't simply a list of recipes. This could be a coffee table book. These are some of the best attributes for it, however, because it does have some drawbacks, thus just the three stars.
One drawback of this cookbook is that it appears to be Mario Batali's Italian spin on American regional cooking. Maybe this is what he's about, but it takes away some authenticity from the specific regions, and makes it into something entirely different. When picking up this cookbook, both my boyfriend and I assumed it would be more true to either a specific American region or multiple regions, but it's not quite that. Now, if it had been presented as an Italian cookbook with a spin, or something of the sort, then it would have made sense. But the title, "America Farm to Table", sets an expectation that is not quite met.
Another thing about this cookbook is that it's not really healthy. Maybe my understanding of farm to table style cooking is incorrect, but I always assume it's going to be all about fresh ingredients. Lots of fresh greens and fruits, herbs and spices, and meats cooked in simple but tasty ways. This cookbook has a lot of recipes calling for frying different things, and that, yet again, is not what we expected. Fried foods can be delicious, sure, and fried foods deserve to have cookbooks. However, fried foods in a farm to table cookbook? Seems a bit off the mark. But hey, I'm not a food expert or a chef, so I'm sure there are plenty of others out there who will disagree with what I've just said. It's just one thing that stuck out about the cookbook that seemed odd.
The last point is both a positive and a negative. It's great that Batali has featured different regions, thus introducing recipes from a wide range of places in America. It allows one to try new things and to perhaps just add a twist to your own recipes. However, some of the ingredients called for are specific to a single region, which can make it difficult to find elsewhere. Or if it can be found, it isn't in the correct form or is just really expensive. This can make it difficult to try all of the recipes in the cookbook.
So to wrap it up, I would recommend this book as a gift to a foodie who is adventurous. This is good as a gift, but not as a practical every day cookbook, or even one that people will try multiple recipes from. This is a beautiful book that could easily be displayed, and I think that's all right, because it's entertaining in its own way, despite not being practical.
February 22, 2015
America-Farm to Table is not only a cookbook that celebrates food, it celebrates the farmers who make the food. Mario Batali takes the time to get to know the men and women who work hard to bring fresh, quality ingredients to upscale restaurants whose executive chefs feature them prominently in their signature dishes and gourmet cuisine. As we read a chapter about Jeff "Smokey" McKeen an oyster farmer in Maine, we are also able to try recipes featuring them such as BBQ Oysters, Oyster and Shrimp Po'Boy and Fried Oysters with Remoulade. Learning about Smokey's current crop of 1.5 million oysters that "arrived a few months ago in a bucket a little bigger than a paint can" and about the sorting, grading, feeding and circulating that goes on along the floating dock that is his far,m we gain a better understanding and a new appreciation of the self proclaimed "Oyster Czar" and his kingdom. And when we read about Rebecca Krassnoski who "farms by karma" we appreciate her gentle methods of raising pigs. She felt pigs were the most mistreated animals in the food chain and vowed not to unload her pigs from the truck using a paddle or an electric prod like some do. If they don't come out of the truck by being called, she tempts them with a blueberry donut. And if that doesn't work? Why, she'll pack them back up and bring them home. Evidently it's not their time. This must have impressed Mario Batali as well because I noticed there are very few pork recipes in this cookbook! If you're interested in learning a little more about the food and the farmers that get it to your table this is a good place to start. I have bookmarked a few recipes of my own to go back to. Tomato Soup with Goat Cheese Dumplings and Raspberry-Grapefruit Popsicles are two recipes that caught my eye but there are many more with beautiful photographs to encourage you to try them as well.
February 14, 2016
Mario Batali talks about how in the 1980's chefs started coming into the spotlight and now famous chefs are like rock stars in our society with TV shows, cookware lines, cookbooks, etc. He counters that the REAL rock stars are the farmers who provide the high quality food that chefs cook with. In this book he explores some of the best restaurants and chefs across America and the farmers who grow and/or raise their food. Each section has information about the chef/farmer relationship and about what that farmer is known for and then Batali creates recipes using those best-of-the-best ingredients. It is a unique concept for a cookbook and I really liked it. There were also quite a few recipes I'd like to try myself. Overall, I would recommend this one for anyone who loves their local farmers and farmers market or anyone interested in growing your own food.
October 11, 2014
Great chronicle of the current farm to table movement within the restaurant industry across the country - makes one wonder how many of the folks they're shopping next to at the local farmers markets are actually local chefs? Loved the circumstantial stories of how the farmers, many of whom were not from farming families, took up farming -as many stories as there are crops! Excellent, no fuss recipes using easy to find local foods, with fabulous photos of the final dishes that convey irresistible aroma and flavor from the page. The Cherry Brown Butter Coffee Cake (p 317) is calling my name......
April 15, 2015
I liked this book but had I paid for it, I would have been disappointed by where my money went. I'm not at all a fan of the writing of Jim Webster who is contributing most of the book's text. All those farmer profiles were skipped over.
The recipes, I like. They have a heavy Italian slant but Batali branches out enough that even if Italian's not your favorite-favorite thing, like me, there is more than enough here to satisfy. He explores so many meats and cuts in the 'mains' section, it was truly amazing. Decently accessible recipes from ingredient to method and good pictures.
The recipes, I like. They have a heavy Italian slant but Batali branches out enough that even if Italian's not your favorite-favorite thing, like me, there is more than enough here to satisfy. He explores so many meats and cuts in the 'mains' section, it was truly amazing. Decently accessible recipes from ingredient to method and good pictures.
December 16, 2014
This book seemed rather disjointed to me. It highlights local farmers across the US and the chefs that use their products. Nice profiles, interesting stories. And then Mario Batali highlights *his* recipes. Huh? And not even necessarily ones that highlight the ingredient that the preceding farm raises. Confusing. Could've been organized much better. And I'd have preferred to see the other chef's recipes.
December 23, 2014
Beautifully illustrated. I really enjoyed the profiles of the growers. Not sure how many of the recipes I would actually try, but reading through several of them, they all seem within the range of a decent home cook.
November 25, 2014
Great idea for a cookbook - reminding us all of where our food comes from. I's too easy to forget when you are in a hurry at the grocery store where and how your food has been grown, handled, shipped, etc.
November 22, 2014
A beautiful cookbook with simple - and easy to adapt - recipes sure to please even the pickiest eaters; a new classic. 5 Stars
Read this review and more on The Library Lass Book Talk Blog.
Read this review and more on The Library Lass Book Talk Blog.
December 4, 2014
Some ideas, the lamb & his carrot/ginger cake. I rarely buy cookbooks - thank you library!! - but I so enjoy looking through them. He has interviews w/chefs/farmers in different parts of the country, visits Nashville. I don't know the restaurant, but am familiar w/Wedge Oak Farms.
Nice.
Nice.
December 4, 2014
Absolutely gorgeous pictures. I only found one recipe with raspberries that I intend to make though. Thank you goodreads for sending me this lovely book. I intend to donate the book to my local library. Perhaps others will use more of the recipes.
March 16, 2015
Mario did it again. His cookbooks just keep getting better and better and I'm ready to start cooking like crazy!
November 8, 2014
This is a celebration of farmers and the food they grow! The recipes are nothing special but the stories about the growers are really great.
November 9, 2014
Excited to try and make the Zucchini & Mozzarella Fritters and the Chicken Saltimbocca!! Yum!
November 10, 2014
Never have I ever wanted to go to a pig farm so badly in my life.
December 21, 2014
The recipes look good, but even more than that I enjoyed the profiles of farmers from around the nation. Read it just for those if you're at all interested in the farm to table movement.
December 27, 2014
Simple, fresh but unique dishes, italian centered, can't wait to try some of them.
December 31, 2014
Not only do the recipes sound amazing but the photos are outstanding. Makes me wish that it was summer & the markets were selling tons of freshly picked treasures!
January 4, 2015
Batali does a great job of introducing interesting but manageable recipes. I will by trying many of the recipes in the book.
January 29, 2015
Lively, flavorful recipes without strange ingredients. Small narratives about local farmers in various parts of the country give it a personal note.
February 8, 2015
great stories about farmers. Recipes were not simple.
March 22, 2015
Found this one just a bit too pretentious. Pass.
May 11, 2015
It was good, I enjoyed this cook book. Some of the stores wer great and the recipes were good.
October 12, 2015
Great book. A whole chapter devoted to oysters so that by itself was enough of a recommendation for me! The Sausage and Pepper Heroes and the Chicken Saltimbocca are both awesome.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 30 reviews