Vegetable Literacy: Cooking and Gardening with Twelve Families from the Edible Plant Kingdom

by Deborah Madison

In her latest cookbook, Deborah Madison, America's leading authority on vegetarian cooking and author of Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone , reveals the surprising relationships between vegetables, edible flowers, and herbs within the same botanical families, and how understanding these connections can help home cooks see everyday vegetables in new light.
 
For over three decades, Deborah Madison has been at the vanguard of the vegetarian cooking movement, authoring classic books on the subject and emboldening millions of readers to cook simple, elegant, plant-based food.

This groundbreaking new cookbook is Madison’s crowning a celebration of the diversity of the plant kingdom, and an exploration of the fascinating relationships between vegetables, edible flowers, herbs, and familiar wild plants within the same botanical families.

Destined to become the new standard reference for cooking vegetables, Vegetable Literacy shows cooks that, because of their shared characteristics, vegetables within the same family can be used interchangeably in cooking. It presents an entirely new way of looking at vegetables, drawing on Madison’s deep knowledge of cooking, gardening, and botany. For example, knowing that dill, chervil, cumin, parsley, coriander, anise, lovage, and caraway come from the umbellifer family makes it clear why they’re such good matches for carrots, also a member of that family. With more than 300 classic and exquisitely simple recipes, Madison brings this wealth of information together in dishes that highlight a world of complementary flavors. Griddled Artichokes with Tarragon Mayonnaise, Tomato Soup and Cilantro with Black Quinoa, Tuscan Kale Salad with Slivered Brussels Sprouts and Sesame Dressing, Kohlrabi Slaw with Frizzy Mustard Greens, and Fresh Peas with Sage on Baked Ricotta showcase combinations that are simultaneously familiar and revelatory.

Inspiring improvisation in the kitchen and curiosity in the garden, Vegetable Literacy —an unparalleled look at culinary vegetables and plants—will forever change the way we eat and cook.

Genres: Cookbooks, Food, Cooking, Nonfiction, Gardening, Reference, Food and Drink

416 pages, Hardcover

First published March 12, 2013

About the author

Deborah Madison is an American chef, writer and cooking teacher. She has been called an expert on vegetarian cooking and her gourmet repertoire showcases fresh garden produce. Her work also highlights Slow Food, local foods and farmers' markets.

Reviews

[Nicole · Rating 5 out of 5]

Before cooking any of the recipes, I read Vegetable Literacy every night before bed. It's a sweet read, anecdotal more than educational, and the recipes are deceptively simple looking. But deliciousness lies within these pages. Just looking at the recipes without making any of them, I was skeptical that they would be anything special. But making them--boy, Madison has serious skill in the combination of basic ingredients to create a mouthwatering meal. I've made three recipes so far--the quinoa cakes with beets, the cauliflower pasta with saffron and parsley, and zucchini with mint and pine nuts, and all three have been wonderfully tasty. What I love about them is that if you have a moderately well-stocked kitchen and herb garden, you won't have to make special shopping trips to get many of the ingredients used in Madison's book. Sure, she gets a little picky about olive oils, and smoked salt is a bit pricy, but for the most part, chances are you can find a recipe that you have all the ingredients for without looking too hard. In addition to this many of the recipes are also very quick and easy to make. These features are rapidly making this my go-to cookbook for everyday meals. I highly recommend this cookbook for anyone even moderately interesting in cooking.

[Eh?Eh! · Rating 4 out of 5]

http://www.seriouseats.com/2015/10/ho...
my favorites, things that made my eyes widen when I tasted them

soy-braised tofu with five-spice powder
anise shortbreads with orange flower water
sauteed Jerusalem artichokes with rosemary and smoked salt*
chervil-chive butter**
sorrel sauce with yogurt***
Rice with Spinach, Lemon, Feta and Pistachios
Peanut Butter Cookies
cauliflower salad with goat cheese
Roasted Rutabaga Batons w/ Caraway and Smoked Paprika
Carrot Soup w/ Tangled Collard Greens
White bean and fennel salad****
Summer Squash Tartines w Rosemary and Lemon
Kale and Potato Mash with Romesco Sauce (almond and hazelnut)


*I didn't have smoked salt so used kosher + some smoked paprika. I didn't think these would brown like Deborah said they would (BECAUSE HOW THIN IS THINLY SLICED LIKE DO YOU WANT ME TO GET OUT MY MANDOLINE CUZ I'VE GOT ONE), but I trusted and it worked.

**Chervil! Who knew!

***I didn't have full-fat yogurt so used lowfat. I think the full-fat would cut the sharpness a little bit more.

****I confess: canned beans

[Tim · Rating 3 out of 5]

torn - ultimately, i think it's pretentious. it never quite reaches an encyclopedic level, though she nicely interweaves personal stories and background about the various individual vegetables. i like the categorical separation - interesting for knowledge-sake, but ultimately this does not make a fine cookbook. the recipes don't make sense in this order, so you would never use this book regularly, or for spontaneous cooking. she claims these recipes are easy, but they are each filled with the unique (random) ingredients about which she is educating us. there will always be something you don't have readily available - smoked salt, lovage, burdock, sorrel, black quinoa, crumbled coconut butter...! and she says things like, "of all the whole grains, i think i like oat groats best." and she includes a recipe for corn cookies. this really isn't practical, and she drives it home when she requests you to source your eggs as locally as possible - like from your next door neighbor's chickens. not any more literate after this compendium.

[Becki Iverson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I bought this book on a whim (which I NEVER do), for two reasons:

1) From working with one of her earlier cookbooks shortly after becoming a vegetarian, I know that Deborah Madison surely knows her shit when it comes to vegetables;

2) I enjoy using lesser known, hard to find, or hyper-local/foraged ingredients in cooking, and although I know how to find them I seem to have a difficult time knowing what to do with them.

This book is miraculous for anyone looking for a primer on every kind of vegetable, grass, cereal, herb, vine or anything else under the sun (sadly, it does not really treat fruits and I hope to god that she releases a companion that is fruit-based). It's almost too encyclopedic at times, including ingredients you wouldn't see unless you lived in a specialized bubble such as, say, Anson Farms - but one can hardly say that is a bad thing.

The recipes are clean and simple, providing both health and easy assembly for those daunted by difficult cooking techniques. Furthermore, thanks to the book's organization by classes of veggies, it's very easy to see that one could substitute almost any ingredient in each class for another, making the recipes infinitely more variable than they would appear on the surface.

This is a wonderful, wonderful book, and a great intro to the plant kingdom for absolutely everyone. Highly, HIGHLY recommend it - and don't library this one, BUY IT. You'll be referencing it a lot.

[Laura Leaney · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a big beautiful book with a perfect title. Deborah Madison is like your mom (if she taught Home Ec, or as I used to call it Home Ick). The book is divided by vegetable family, such as "The Cabbage Family," and then further divided by type - like red cabbage, kale, brussel sprouts, and cauliflower. The information on each vegetable isn't all that groundbreaking for me - although it's nice to be introduced, I guess. Carrot, this is Laura - Laura, this is Carrot, who did not get his orange color until the 16th century. Still, I like the list of all the varieties (even though I probably couldn't find most of them). How would you love to cook up the Violet de Provence heirloom artichoke? I know I would. Where the hell can I get one?

Still, the recipes are fantastic and relatively simple, keeping the flavor of the vegetable at its most true. I especially like the "Seared Beets with Walnuts over Wilted Kale with Micro Greens" and the "Cauliflower with Saffron, Pepper Flakes, Plenty of Parsley, and Pasta." Today I'm making the "Summer Squash Tartines with Rosemary and Lemon for tonight's appetizer. The recipes are relatively simple, with a short ingredient list, which helpfully avoids what I call the "Bon Appetite Factor," that sensation of despair you get when the recipe column extends pretty far down into the next page.

I'd love to have had more photographs, but then again the book is heavy enough. Hmmm. I guess I could use the internet to see a photograph of a Chioggia beet.

[Kirsten · Rating 4 out of 5]

This gorgeous book is especially essential for CSA members and farmer's market lurkers. It's arranged by vegetable families, and would be a wonderful reference when one is confronted with a relatively unfamiliar vegetable or a glut of whatever's in season. The writing is beautiful and somewhat chatty, like hanging out in the kitchen of an accomplished and warmly friendly chef. The author suggests flavor pairings for each vegetable family and also offers information as to which parts of the plant are edible -- can you sauté up the greens as well as eating the root? What bits should be saved for stock? I have yet to make any recipes from this book, but I think it's lovely and I suspect I will en up purchasing a copy of my own.

[Helen Connelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Five stars for quality information, three stars for fun. If you need to know it about a plant, it’s in this book. If you’re looking for recipes to tempt you - not so much. There was a lot of effort put into this book, a lot, so feel free to ignore my commentary, as I am likely an outlier with my opinion.

[Julie Davis · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a beautifully written book which nicely weaves gardening and cooking anecdotes with factual information. Having read several other books which fill a similar niche I was interested to see how this one stacked up.

I really liked the writing and author's voice. However, none of the recipes appealed to me. To be fair, Madison is speaking to vegetarians whenever she writes and I am not in that group, though I do enjoy a good vegetable recipe as much as the next person. These recipes may all be quite stellar but the titles and descriptions never looked enticing. I tend to enjoy vegetable recipes coming from ethnic sources, especially Asian, and there is something about her recipes that always looks a bit forced in the way that many vegetarian cookbooks have done in the past.

I should add that there are some very basic recipes for most vegetables which anyone would enjoy, however, I have been cooking long enough that many of these are in my regular repetoire. Thus I must depend on the other recipes to make a cookbook valuable.

Chalk it up to a disconnect between Madison and me. Others with different taste will probably get a great deal out of this book, not to mention the basic vegetable family knowledge which Madison conveys. I'll stick with Nigel Slater (Tender) and Bert Greene (Greene on Greens) as well as various Asian and Middle Eastern recipes.

[Debra Daniels-Zeller · Rating 5 out of 5]

I put this book on my list nearly a month ago, and this whole time I've been cooking and slowly savoring all the tips and information about the 12 vegetable families covered in it. It's too big to take anywhere to read, so I read it at night have delicious dreams. Initially I got this book because I'm a big fan of Deborah Madison's recipes. I always learn something new from Deborah's descriptions or explanations. When I first ordered it, I hadn't expected anything so huge and wonderful. THe cover is understated beauty, and though tHis looks like a beautiful coffee table book, it's so useful, I'll use it over and over again for refrence and recipe inspiration. After reading just a few pages, I could tell how much passion and work went into this book. One of my favorite aspects of this book is that Deborah shows us how to use parts of the vegetables that many people often toss out like radish greens and carrot tops. And I also love the tips for good companions for the vegetables in recipes. If you want to learn all about vegetables from gardening to stove, this is the book to get. You won't be disappointed.

[Debbi · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a beautiful book. Deborah Madison is one of my favorite cookbook writers. She consistently creates a clear path to a delicious destination. Her ideas are innovative, yet down to earth. Vegetable Literacy is carefully researched and well organized, an interesting read for plant lovers as well as cooks. My reservation about the book is that it is too beautiful. I don't feel inspired to bring it into the kitchen, it doesn't beg to be splattered and stained. It sits on my coffee table where I dip in and read about carrots and artichokes between other things I'm reading. That said, I have tried Red Lentil and Coconut Soup with Black Rice,Turmeric and Greens...fantastic. There are at least another dozen recipes I plan to try. I only wish the 4 lb book was a bit more kitchen friendly.

[Martha · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an amazing book. I had it from the library and only managed to get through the section on carrots and other family members and had to skim the rest of this not small book. I'll have to get it again, though it would be an excellent book for a serious cook to have in a personal library. The author takes a fresh (and very thorough) approach to growing, selecting, and preparing vegetables. One of the things I liked best was a list with each vegetable of what condiments or spices complement the selection. This is a cookbook but also a reference book of great value.

[Stephanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked having a book that put things in families. However, I would have liked to see more photos of finished dishes. And, more photos of the unusual things listed. I don't need a photo of a carrot, but asafetida would have been something new.

[D Dyer · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book honestly changed how I cook vegetables. It has made me a more adventurous and more confident cook. I’ve returned to it so often that it’s practically falling a part

[Gertie]

I got this on sale for $2.99 via BookBub, some of the recipes and information looks interesting. It's NOT a vegetarian book, though I believe it mostly is, and I am confident I can veganize anything in it.

Looking forward to trying a few new simple recipes, and learning a bit about vegetable "families".

[Cait · Rating 3 out of 5]

I learned some things about vegetable families which I could have known but didn't. I struggle with cook books with too much writing, which lately is all chef autobiography. This is a little autobio, but a lot of hard botany facts. It wasn't a perfect mix, but I got some recipes to try, so further updates as warrent

[Kevin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not just a reference and source book but an opportunity to expand our understanding and use of different vegetables that we may not have tasted.

[Robert Hudder · Rating 4 out of 5]

Look, I picked this up at the library and within minutes was immersed in it. The approach of looking at the families where these vegetables live and their similarities opened doors for me. Simple ideas such as the fact that Queen Anne's Lace is a wild carrot got me to thinking on whether you could eat the tops and bottoms of that plant in the same way as a carrot.

So aside from the botanical, there are straight forward recipes. But the proximity of the recipes to relatives just screams for reinterpretation of the recipe using some of the relatives. I will be blogging a review of this book and putting the more interesting facts in there but for anyone who is just starting to explore vegetables in a serious way, this is an amazing book to help you to approach the vegetable.

I really don't know what to say. I have several books on vegetables already but this one has me thinking in a different way. It has taken me a long time to finish the book because every section set off hours of thoughts. This is a good thing.

[Jeff · Rating 5 out of 5]

Deborah Madison is well-known for vegetarian cooking. This book actually break vegetables down into their related families of plants, allowing us to see interconnections between different kinds of plants. I have made a number of the recipes in this book, and in other cases have improvised my own variations, following Madison's model, always with excellent results. I especially appreciate her sometimes sly suggestions for going beyond a strictly vegetarian diet, as when she notes that shrimp might be great in a dish for cauliflower and pasta. I've made it both ways, and it's delightful in both versions. With summer farmer's markets now in full swing, Madison's book is my bible of how to come up with wonderful meals from what's fresh at the moment. Anyone who is vegetarian and wants to expand their repertoire, or cooks who want to do more with vegetables than steam or boil them, will benefit from this beautiful book.

[Lydia · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the most beautiful, thoughtful and useful vegetable cookbooks/gardeners handbooks I have seen in many years. Like Martha, I am also previewing the library copy--so I haven't fully digested the whole book, that will take years. I will need to live with it. Deborah Madison comes from a family of botanists, but also worked with Alice Waters, founded Greens restaurant, and wrote many cookbooks. This book is big-- 400 pages in a 11x11" format. Vegetables and herbs are classed by family, and each chapter starts with a history/overview of how it is grown followed by a listing of varieties, how to use, vegetable companions and recipes with beautiful photographs of selected dishes. There is a sources section for seeds and a decent index. How wonderful to find this as my Renee Shepherd's "More Recipes from a Kitchen Garden" falls apart.

[Louise · Rating 4 out of 5]

Vegetables are the new bacon/kale/quinoa/whatever. This cookbook/garden advice book is a good addition to anyone's cooking library. There's background about particular vegetables and what it's like to plant them. I like that the recipes are unfussy and easy to build off of. The pictures in here are beautiful and really do make me want to head down to the farmer's market or at least the garden store to pick up some fresh vegetables to eat/plant.

[Kristen · Rating 5 out of 5]

The first page I zeroed in on said, "The main caveat with leeks is that they can harbor sand and dirt within their many-layered shanks. . ." page 256

Sold right there with the language!

This book is a vegetable lover's haven.

More lovely and mildly humorous text:

"Leeks embody the delicate side of the allium tribe, adding more of a whisper and less of shout when it comes to the onion flavor."

[Leigh · Rating 2 out of 5]

This cookbook is big, expensive and is for folks who are SERIOUS about vegetables. For forty bucks, I can find a very good cookbook that'll have a wider range of recipes from all cooking disciplines and probably be more relaxing to read. For Gods sake, I just want to cook something, not get a doctorate in Advanced Theory of Avocado.

[Marianna · Rating 2 out of 5]

I like the way this book is organized. The information at the beginning of each section is wonderful. The recipes, not so much. Too many odd ingredients.

[AskNezka · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful cookbook and fascinating resource on several edible plant families.

[Max · Rating 3 out of 5]

Uhm, interesting. Great design and some unique take on herbs and spices. Though, for me not very practical. Just a little too weird for me.

[Abby]

This book has had a journey—a literal one from state to state as I moved around the country, after it came as a housewarming gift from my botany professors. Deborah Madison has written many books and this one is not her most famous, but a cookbook organized by botanical families was a perfect choice for someone who adores both plants and literacy and was doing her own cooking for the first time. My first impression, though, was that the recipes were a little too gourmet for me. I’m cheap, cooking is not my favorite thing to do, and Almost Homemade was much more my speed at that moment. Ghee? Lovage? Rutabagas? I put this one back on the shelf.

So this book’s second journey has been, in the last year, one from obscurity to its current battered state, sprouting rainbow-colored sticky notes and heavily starred and underlined. I have read it cover to cover. Vegetable Literacy came into the spotlight when I got a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) share for the first time, and I can’t even begin to express what this experience did for the way I cook and think and live. I began by looking up recipes for the vegetables I was getting each week, and then checking the “Kitchen Wisdom” tips and “Good Companions” recommendations, but then the entries were so interesting and well-written that I started reading whole chapters. My love for Deborah Madison’s writing has grown and flourished the more time I’ve spent with it. My instincts for cooking, which have almost wholly developed in the last 12 months through seasonal CSA veggies, have been heavily influenced by Madison’s. This is no bad thing.

If you are a gardener, even a little bit—if you are interested in food and/or plants—if you have or are considering a CSA—I can’t recommend this book enough. But since I can't disentangle the journey from the book, understand that I'm recommending both.

[Faith · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are a lot of things to love about this book. It’s a celebration of vegetables. A cookbook for gardeners and botany nerds, though you don’t have to be either to enjoy the recipes. As a child of the 90s who grew up with the firm understanding that vegetables are things you steam in the microwave until sad and flavorless and then choke down unadorned because they’re good for you, I am HERE for celebrating them as flavorful and vibrant and worthy of being the main event on your plate. Not to mention, there are recipes here for more obscure things that aren’t easy to learn about— lovage and Jerusalem artichokes and tepary beans, for instance. Maybe that’s not super useful for the average Joe, but if, like me, you’ve been wondering for years what to do with the giant lovage plant in your back yard, those recipes are a godsend. There are also plenty of think-outside-the-box recipes for more standard veggies like carrots, broccoli, etc.

That said.

The author chooses some WEIRD hills to die on, which makes reading the non-recipe portions of the book not entirely pleasant. It began with the author’s grudging concession that *maybe* cilantro haters are real and then got worse from there. As someone with the “cilantro tastes like soap” gene, uh, thanks for giving me permission to exist, I guess? That alone wouldn’t have put me off, but the whole book was full of weirdly judgey comments in that vein. A lot of her science and history are also a bit… questionable. A lot of urban legends without any historical evidence to back them up. And then there’s the bit where she tells you it’s okay to eat raw potatoes. (Do not eat raw potatoes. It will not end well.) So on the whole, I love the diversity of recipes, but as a book about vegetables to read, maybe don’t? This was an excellent candidate for being thrown at the wall in frustration, if only I hadn’t read it as an ebook…

[Chronicler of Creepy · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to like this--I've been vegan for over half a decade and I'm also a gardener. However this book just comes off as incredibly pretentious to me. I felt like the majority of the recipes aren't things people actually eat with any sort of regularity, and almost every recipe had at least one "exotic" ingredient that is difficult to source or expensive. Additionally, a lot of the recipes contain dairy--there were so many savory yogurt/ghee/sour cream/whatever variations that it feels overwhelming and redundant.

The plant portion, tips for using the entire plant, and kitchen wisdom was lovely, but the recipes just totally threw me and I don't get who this book is for! It might have been better to make a gardening book with ideas and tips on how to incorporate these plants into everyday cooking rather than so many strange and bougie recipes. I'm sure many of them are delicious, but the combinations of ingredients and portion sizes were just bizarre and unrealistic to me. Maybe I'll change my mind when I win the lottery and get my own chef haha.

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

Deborah Madison's cookbooks have been a staple in my kitchen for many years.

In some ways this reminds me of a 21st century version of Marian Morash's The Victory Garden Cookbook. It is organized in a way that assumes the user to be both a cook and a gardener. And that makes a lot of sense to me as someone who enjoys both of those pasttimes.

I really liked pouring through the ebook from the library and found several recipes I'd like to try. But the more that I think about it, the more that I suspect I won't invest in a hard copy for myself. It was very interesting and creative, but I just don't see me using it on an regular basis. I definitely like some innovation in my cooking, but I also like tradition, and that was the weakness in this volume. Most of the recipes just felt a little too different for everyday use.

[Gabrielle · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've never been particularly charmed by Deborah Madison's writing or recipes. This book feels like an American attempt at Nigel Slater's "Tender," which is to say it's bigger in every way and much less interesting. The chapter introductions in particular feel like Madison couldn't decide between personal vignettes or cursory culinary histories--so she includes both, inconsistently, to ill effect. The recipes feel out of date by at least 15 years, for a book that came out 7 years ago.

That all being said, I can see how for many people this would be a lovely, if overgrown, introduction to many fascinating and uncommon vegetables and herbs--although the book's scope is too ambitious to treat any of these with much attentiveness.

Sure, read this book. But I would more heartily recommend several others, including "Tender" by Nigel Slater, and "Roots: The Definitive Compendium" by Diane Morgan.