I'm looking for a book to give comprehensive advice on how to choose fruit, vegetables, meats etc. Anyone have any recommendations?
Interesting request. A guide for meat alone might be available. You might want to look at Eating on the Wild Side - it's not about foraging. "Eating on the Wild Side is a useful, fun-to-read manual on making smart food choices. It is arranged by fruit or vegetable, and describes the plant's history and how years of cultivation (and industry tinkering) have changed the flavor and nutritional qualities of the food." At the end of each chapter it lists the variety names to look for, typically at a farmers market or orchard. We have two nearby orchards that each grow more than 50 kinds of apples. Their websites give a schedule of when each variety is usually harvested and their use. I prefer a cooking apple to dehydrate with my favorite being Calville de Blanc. You can probably find a book on apples that talks about each variety.
You might just trust your local farmers. I've noticed the hardy greens I've been buying at my local farmers market are a much better quality than what I get at the supermarket. For one thing, they haven't been spending days in a truck or, like tomatoes, picked before they are really ripe. Swiss chard's flavor sweetens when we have cold weather so it's wonderful right now when I buy it from farmers growing it here in NH high tunnels. Although we have great supermarkets, I generally only see one kind of green bean all year. I never see other good tasting varieties. I have a small vegetable garden so grow my own.
You might even peruse a seed catalog before visiting a farmers market or farm stand so you can identify what you see. This year I discovered the new variety of small butternut squashes which have more flavor and are a nice 2 person size. You should know that sugar pumpkins are different from pumpkins growns for jack-o-lanterns. Personally I don't care for iceberg lettuce so I choose Romaine or a butterhead. One time I visited a great farmers market and bought a cantalop from different vendors as long as they named their variety so I could find out which was the sweetest and then know what to ask for next time.
I have never forgotten our city slicker friend who thought all potatoes were the same. Ha! Again, the descriptions in a seed catalog might be helpful to you as to flavor, which is better baked and which is better boiled, which is a good keeper.
I hope something I've written is useful.
Thoughtful and useful. I'm a fanatic when it comes to recognizing and picking produce. My mother taught me how. Certainly she learned from her mother, a revered Hungarian cook. Seed catalogs? Never thought of going that route, so thanks!
Supermarket fruits and veggies can be dreadful. Grown more for uniformity and ship-ability than flavor, many totally incapable of proper ripening (IMO, a major headache). Reminds me of that old running joke about the three rock-hard tomatoes wrapped in cellophane and lined up in a plastic box. They've somewhat been supplanted by stacks of grape and cherry tomatoes. Pretty red, pink, yellow, orange and green as they are, with enough herb and spice additions, acceptable for cooking sauce.
You highlighted cantaloupe. I'll check and raise you a honeydew, which one should never buy outside of late August to early October in the USA, and then, only if you're offered a sample at the farm market or know what a true 'dew should look, smell and feel like. At $6 or $7 bucks apiece or higher, I've learned how to avoid tossing good cash away on a pale green bowling ball. On the supermarket, local fruitstand front, won't buy it if it doesn't say "Turlock, CA" on the label AND meets all the qualifiers.
Plums and peaches, stone fruit in general, pears, persimmons...proceed with caution. Whenever possible, go local and in-season. Long-distances, distribution issues and disappearance of sturdy wooden-boxed, individually-wrapped product means that so many stellar, full-of-flavor varieties (like "late-duarte" plums!) are either no longer commercially grown or too delicate to safely ship. Fruit labels found in your town's Stop & Shop or Piggly Wiggly indicate Black, Red, Green...Whatever happened to Green Gage, Friar and Santa Rosa?
I know it's slightly off-topic, more the "life-experience" model than reference book-learning which the original poster requested. Worthy discussion nonetheless.
Really interesting suggestion about the seed catalogs. I would never have thought of it, but it makes perfect sense. Thanks :-)
In Alice Waters books on Vegetables and Fruits she give a lot of information about each. The books are set up alphabetically (ie; Artichokes to Zucchini).
By Alice Waters: Chez Panisse Vegetables:
https://www.amazon.com/Chez-Panisse-V...
By Alice Waters: Chez Panisse Fruit:
https://www.amazon.com/Chez-Panisse-F...
"How to Pick a Peach" by my friend, Russ Parsons, holds up over the years. I confess that I have not read it cover to cover. So here's another review, https://smallfarms.typepad.com/small_...
Very interesting question indeed! But, quite difficult to answer. Do you mean choosing produce based on freshness (how to tell if something is fresh) or based on variety (e.g. choosing between different cuts of meat or varieties of apples)?
There are some books on meat, fish or vegetables. I've always cherished my books on vegetables by Antonio Carluccio. And then there are some specialised books on cutting techniques for fish and meat and they often contain good tips on choosing produce. Two examples: "Mukoita II, Cutting Techniques: Seafood, Poultry, and Vegetables (The Japanese Culinary Academy's Complete Japanese Cuisine", and "La Varenne Pratique: Part 2, Meat, Poultry & Fish".
The difficulty lies in every region having their own produce, based on local climates, being near the sea etcetera. Here I'd just drive around looking for shops and asking them what is good and where they get their produce. Having a good source/connection with your local shops is extremely important in getting great ingredients!
I also value my Carluccio books.
But isnt the answer to the basic question, the well trodden path of "local and seasonal"? Yes, I know that, if I want tomatoes during most of the year, I am going to be buying an imported product but surely it remains a very valid principle. Unfortunately, I no longer have a nearby greengrocer but, for fish and meat, there are local suppliers who pride themselves on selling locally raised meat and fairly locally landed seafood.
That’s true - local and seasonal is always the way to go.
But there is some feedback loop in play. Sometimes I read about an ingredient which I had not seen before in my regular shops. So then I start searching for it nearby, and quite often I can then find it in some new or existing shop. That way I am broadening my horizon of what’s out there in terms of food. Same for things I eat in (foreign) restaurants, e.g. sweetbreads or squab.
As for fish, it seems you lot are gradually being forced to start buying local... :)) Not wanting to cause any grievance here!
Us lot are in a mess over seafood. On the one hand, the seafood we like to eat isnt caught in our nearby waters, so we have to import. And, on the other hand, we export much of what we do catch and land here because there's little local demand - like Scottish langoustines which mainly go to Spain. .
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