Zingerman's Guide to Good Eating
If I didn't live in the San Francisco Bay Area, I'd probably do a lot of shopping by ordering from Zingerman's in Ann Arbor. Started as a deli, the business has since grown to become a bakery and a purveyor of quality ingredients from America and Europe.
But since I do live in Oakland, I have local sources for most of the high-end ingredients they sell. The only exception is an organic, stone-ground polenta fresh from the Piemonte. And I mean fresh; you have to store it in the freezer, and it has no equal among the polentas you buy even from tony stores in the area.
All of which is a roundabout way of describing how I got a copy of their new book, The Zingerman's Guide to Good Eating, written by Zingerman's co-founder Ari Weinzweig. I was ordering some polenta, noticed the book (which they carry in paperback; a hardback edition is forthcoming) and decided to buy a copy.
The book is partly an encyclopedia of gourmet ingredients, what to know about them, how to pick out good versions, and so forth. So one chapter is all about olive oils. Another all about vinegars, including aceto balsamico tradizionale. One's all about cheeses, another about bread. There's a whole chapter devoted to the polenta I bought in the same order. You get the idea.
Within each section, you can learn how the best versions of the product are made. You can learn how to find good samples, even if you're not shopping from Zingerman's. For the serious foodie, not all of this will be revelatory; I skimmed the section on traditional balsamic vinegar, figuring that two other books and lots of articles on that very subject have me well grounded. But there's plenty here even for the connoisseur, and the novice foodie will find lots of great information.
This book is also a cookbook, each chapter having a number of recipes that highlight the food item discussed in the preceding pages of the chapter. Even a quick skim through them leaves me hungry, and one struck me as so intriguing that within ten minutes of opening the book I had added a menu item for an upcoming dinner party (more on that towards the end of the month).
Finally, this book is something of a catalog. While the advice Weinzweig offers pertains to buying quality ingredients no matter where you are, he obviously lists Zingerman's first in mail-order sources. Most of his knowledge, after all, is derived from two decades of tasting and exploring products for the company to sell.
Central to the book is the idea that you need nothing more than your taste buds to appreciate good food. There's no special magic; you just have to take your time and think a bit while you're chewing. In Weinzweig's world, every store should offer you taste samples. If they don't, he says, shop somewhere else. It is this all-embracing attitude that probably makes the book particularly worthwhile for the newbie foodie. Cook with good ingredients. Try different producer's versions of the same basic product when possible and figure out which one you like best; you don't need to trust anyone's opinion except your own. Take the time to think about where your food came from and how your mouth is responding to it as you eat. Good messages, all of them. As I say proudly at the top of this site: you have to eat, you might as well enjoy it. And few people capture the sheer joy of eating well as Weinzweig.
For those of who already do this, the book serves as a reminder and a great reference on the ingredients we love so much, and will offer insights, or at least tempting recipes, to even the most practiced gourmet shopper. The books is available from Zingerman's of course, but also fine local independent bookstores.
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