Oriental Vegetables: The Complete Guide for the Gardening Cook

by Joy Larkcom

Increasingly, chefs today both professional and amateur are emphasizing fresh, seasonal ingredients, locally and organically grown. Now, in the revised edition of the book Alice Waters of Chez Panisse called indispensable, Joy Larcom presents abundant information about crops that are full
of flavor, highly nutritious and easy to grow. She describes over seventy exotic vegetables that can be cultivated regardless of climate, soil type or garden size. Here are hardy leafy mustards, komatsuna, Chinese yams and cabbage, lablab beans, pak choi, the climbing spinach basella, gourds,
luffas and many more. For this edition, Larkcom has added new varieties and taken out those which are no longer available. She's updated information on such topics as pest and disease control; and added to the section that offers over 50 recipes for making delicious salads (Chinese Hot Salad),
salad dressings (Lemon and Green Onion Dressing), soups (Basic Western Style Greens Soup), pickles (Pickled Mushroom Stems), and other dishes using the vegetables featured in the first section (Azuki Bean Risotto with Watercress and Grilled Tofu, Creamy Artichoke Soup, Duck with Mustard Leaves and
Pasta, etc.). The helpful appendices include a glossary of gardening terms, a season/month conversion chart, a growing information chart, plant names, gardening organizations and seed suppliers in the U.S.

Genres: Gardening, Food, Nonfiction, Reference, Cookbooks

232 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1994

Reviews

[Cristina]

The revised edition of this is even better than the original. Great info about the vegetables and how to grow them. Also includes a list of all the vegetables with their respective Chinese and Japanese names and a list of seed companies that sell Asian veggie seeds.

[Alex]

The author has very extensive research, much of it done in oriental countries, added by her own planting practice in the west. The book is a very useful reference (so I bought a copy, an exception to my habit of reading-but-not-owning).