Veg - Gregg Wallace
Ian Dury used to sing he was ‘from Essex, in case you couldn’t tell,’ and Gregg Wallace also hails from the flatlands (in case you couldn’t tell). As such he makes a refreshing change in a market dominated by mimsy middle-class people from the nicer parts of London, always twittering on about their local shops and farmers’ markets where the price of the stuff on offer is invariably hair-raising. Gregg actually has no hair to raise.
What he does have is a greengrocer’s passion for vegetables, one that
was demonstrated on Radio 4’s Veg Talk. He knows his veg from a hands-on
perspective and so his chapter-by-chapter breakdown of the vegetables freshly
available in the UK is informed and informative. Gregg believes in local
produce and so, apart from aubergines, this is a book firmly footed in what
we can grow ourselves and pick up easily.
The flavour and texture of all the main varieties is described and how to pick the best quality off the stall and how best to store it. Then comes useful info on basic cooking of each type and variant. A lot of people will be surprised at how many ways there are of cooking each vegetable and many will discover they’ve been doing it wrong.
If this was just a vegetable book, it would be well worth its place in the kitchen but it’s also a very good source of recipes, too. Most are quick and easy and above all simple so letting the vegetables shine through. Oh and it should be stressed that this book is one about vegetables, not a vegetarian cookbook. There are masses of dishes for meat eaters in here and having tried a few now, I can recommend them all.
