Zingerman's Guide to Good Eating: How to Choose the Best Bread, Cheeses, Olive Oil, Pasta, Chocolate, and Much More

by Ari Weinzweig

Hailed by the New York Times, Esquire, and the Atlantic Monthly as one of the best delicatessens in the country, Zingerman’s is a trusted source for superior ingredients — and an equally dependable supplier of reliable information about food. Now, Ari Weinzweig, the founder of Zingerman’s, shares two decades of knowledge gained in his pursuit of the world’s finest food products.
In this fascinating resource guide, he tells you everything you need to know about how to choose top-quality basics that can transform every meal from ordinary to memorable: oils, vinegars, and olives; bread, pasta, and rice; cheeses and cured meats; seasonings like salt, pepper, and saffron; vanilla, chocolate, and tea.
How do you tell the difference between a great aged balsamic vinegar and a caramel-flavored impostor? How do you select an extraordinary olive oil from the bewildering array of bottles on the grocery shelf? Which Italian rice makes the creamiest risotto (and what are the tricks to making a terrific one)? Is there a difference between traditionally made pastas and commercial brands? How do English and American Cheddars compare? How do you make sense of the thousands of teas in the world to find one you love? What should you look for on the label of a good chocolate?
In Zingerman's Guide to Good Eating, Ari Weinzweig provides the answers -- and includes approximately 100 recipes, many collected from artisan food makers, from Miguel’s Mother’s Macaroni to “LEO” (lox, eggs, and onions) to Funky, Chunky Dark Chocolate Cookies.
This book is not only an indispensable guide to pantry essentials, it’s an enthralling read. You’ll visit artisan food producers, learn fascinating facts, find sources for the best brands and food suppliers, and get valuable advice that will change the way you cook forever.

Genres: Food, Cookbooks, Cooking, Nonfiction, Reference, Culinary, Food Writing

512 pages, Hardcover

First published November 14, 2003

About the author

CO-FOUNDER, ZINGERMAN'S COMMUNITY OF BUSINESSES

In 1982, Ari Weinzweig, along with his partner Paul Saginaw, founded Zingerman’s Delicatessen with a $20,000 bank loan, a Russian History degree from the University of Michigan, 4 years of experience washing dishes, cooking and managing in restaurant kitchens and chutzpah from his hometown of Chicago. They opened the doors with 2 employees and a small selection of specialty foods and exceptional sandwiches.

Today, Zingerman’s Delicatessen is a nationally renowned food icon and the Zingerman’s Community of Businesses has grown to 10 businesses with over 750 employees and over $55 million in annual revenue. Aside from the Delicatessen, these businesses include Zingerman’s Bakehouse, Coffee Company, Creamery, Roadhouse, Mail Order, ZingTrain, Candy Manufactory, Cornman Farms and a Korean restaurant that is scheduled to open in 2016. No two businesses in the Zingerman’s Community of Businesses are alike but they all share the same Vision and Guiding Principles and deliver “The Zingerman’s Experience” with passion and commitment.

Besides being the Co-Founding Partner and being actively engaged in some aspect of the day-to-day operations and governance of nearly every business in the Zingerman’s Community, Ari Weinzweig is also a prolific writer. His most recent publications are the first 4 of his 6 book series Zingerman’s Guide to Good Leading Series: A Lapsed Anarchist’s Approach to Building a Great Business (Part 1), Being a Better Leader (Part 2), Managing Ourselves (Part 3) and the newly-released Part 4, The Power of Beliefs in Business. Earlier books include the Zingerman’s Guides to Giving Great Service, Better Bacon, Good Eating, Good Olive Oil, Good Vinegar and Good Parmigiano-Reggiano.

Ari regularly travels across the country (and world) on behalf of ZingTrain, teaching organizations and businesses about Zingerman’s approach to business. He is a sought-after Keynote speaker, having delivered keynotes for Inc. 500, Microsoft Expo Spring Conference, Great Game of Business Gathering of Games, Positive Business Conference at the University of Michigan Ross School of Business, American Society for Quality (ASQ), and the American Cheese Society. Most recently, Ari and Paul Saginaw were invited to address an audience of 50,000 for the University of Michigan 2015 Spring Commencement.

Reviews

[Kevin]

If you like to cook and love to eat, this is the perfect book for you!

Great tips and suggestions to pick the best olive oil, olives, cheeses, vanilla, pasta, polenta, balsamic vinegar, rice and everything tasty to put on your plate.

Along the way you’ll learn the history and process to produce all of these tasty things and follow some great recipes!

[Emily]

I think the recipes in this one are actually unnecessary. It's much more useful for the how-to-choose parts. Also not a fan of the illustrations, but that's incidental and no reason to get a hate-on for it. An ok book, but a good resource, if that makes sense.

[alex]

A book I'll never stop reading.

[Amanda Engler]

More of a reference book really - something I'll keep on my cookbook shelf and turn to often when needed. The detail and first-hand research is almost overwhelming, so I enjoyed reading in smaller chunks in between other books. The recipes are a nice bonus and I look forward to trying some.

[Laura Sharp]

I enjoyed this book, the writing is fun and informative, and it makes you want to go out and find the best ingredients, because if you think about it, you know you aren't doing yourself any favors buying that bottle of store brand extra virgin olive oil - I mean it's basically a lie... I loved his recourses and recommendations throughout the book for brands and where to buy these top notch foods. It makes my mouth water just thinking about real vanilia beans and chocolate! On the chapter of breads, I kept wishing they would include a recipe for the artesian bread they were talking about and not just recipes for what to do with a loaf when you have one, I would love to experiment and see if I could make something worthy of eating. My main problem with this book is cost unfortunately, I think in some instances it wouldn't be too much more to buy these types of taste-bud inducing luxuries, but for my husband and I, it is currently out of reach. I hope to pick this book up again when we do have that extra to spend!

[Robert Hudder]

How helpful can a twenty year plus book on good eating be? Since there are many 'traditional' techniques and purveyors, there is some utility. The processes, in many cases, are still largely the same.

There are some newer folks that are using takes on older ways that don't show up here possibly due to under exposure or in being only recently developed. I am thinking about bean to bar chocolate places as one example.

The good news is that many of the things to look for in assessing quality are still quite relevant. The recipes themselves are underwhelming but there are a few that are worth remembering or seeking out to show off the products. I have been curious about a scrambled egg recipe, an egg sandwich, a walnut sauce and a pasta dish. I did also discover a vinegar that I would like to try. So, if you are a foodie, even though there is a lot of well known issues, this could be a good place to have a few good ideas about the ingredients covered.

Yes, just a few changes can make a huge difference.

[Aviva]

This isn't a cookbook. It's mostly a long-form advertisement for expensive snacks using overly precious ingredients. I feel like Zingerman's should be paying me for reading it. My personal opinion is that you do not need a $20 olive oil from each region to enjoy regional food. Do you think Tuscans are going "oh, I this is a Provençal recipe, I had better go get a bottle of Provençal olive oil?" They are not. Nor do you need a pagelong recipe explaining how to dip raw vegetables into expensive olive oil and salt. The actual recipes are fine, but they seem more optimized to give you something to feed your date (if you're the kind of wealthy man who cooks once and only once to impress someone), or to prattle about at a potluck, than to get you through the week.

[Ietrio]

A nice hybrid of a how to choose instruction book and cookbook with ugly illustrations. A bit surprised of the choice of brands, but probably that has to do with the custom regulations and who gets to be imported.

[john worthington]

I love this book because I love food and reading about food!

Tons of valuable information. Don't miss it ! Good to keep as a reference. He has so much knowledge and is easy to read.

[Chris Knight]

All about specialty foods. Good reference book to come back to.

[Julie]

Interesting read. Recipes, but definitely not a cookbook.

[Kate]

I've eaten at restaurants where the food was $60 a plate, diners and dives, plasticky chain places, and trendy neighborhood cafes. But wherever I go and whatever I eat, nothing hits the spot like a Zingerman's sandwhich ("new" pickle on the side please).

this book is on my christmas list/eventually i've got to break down and buy this book list. My mom has a torn and tattered copy, but now that I've moved away, i'm realizing it's a gourmet cooking staple I've really got to get for myself. Years ago, we were always heading down to ann arbor for my sister's surgeries at the university hospital there. Going to Zingerman's was always a big treat on these days and made the whole experience a lot less scary.

Back then it seemed like only a little community knew about the wonders which lay beyond the doors at Zingerman's deli. You could still walk in and not be trampled by a bajillion indie college kids spending their trust funds on italian vinegar and fresh challah bread. Now Zingerman's label is on everything that goes out their door and they've grown a following who know that this little deli tucked away in Michigan is like Ali Baba's cave for foodies. The hordes of people might be a bit chaotic, but in the end I'm glad so many people have come to support such a great place.

[Daniel]

How much do you value your bread, cheese, salt, rice, pasta, oil, and meat? How about honey, chocolate, cornmeal, saffron, pepper, balsamic vinegar, tea, or vanilla? Ari Weinzweig instructs on how to find the best of each of these products, and suggests a few recipes by which a novice cook might make use of them.

Zingerman's restaurant and deli in Ann Arbor does a brisk trade in eye-poppingly expensive goods, but Weinzwig contends that even those priced out of such treats will find other gastronomic delights within their grasp.

Perhaps!

No matter what your tax bracket may be, the descriptions of artisan food are good enough to eat and usually entertaining. Thankfully, the book keeps the gourmet snobbery to a minimum, going instead with a "salt-of-the-earth" concept, which is easier to swallow and adequately justified by the author's knowledge of the finer points of food production.

[Will]

This isn't a cookbook, though it contains some of the best recipes I've used. It's really a guide to eating and choosing good foods. If you're interested in learning how to choose the best cheeses, vinegars, oils, chocolates, peppers, and other staples, this book will tell you how and give you some new ideas about how to use them. It also has some nice sections on the histories of each ingredient, and lists of places where you can order some hard-to-find stuff. A definite must for any foodie.

[Anastasia]

All you ever wanted to know about the ingredients that make up a Mediterranean-style diet. With a Jewish-deli twist, of course.

The author's a total devotee to quality food and I loved reading about where it all comes from and the process of getting an ingredient to the store... from pressing olives and milling cornmeal in Tuscany, to a really great artisan bread, this guys was talkin' my foodie language. Cute cartoon pix and recipes.

[Melissa]

Found this book in the designated "take my crap, please!" pile in my apartment building, and was delighted. I love Zingermans, and I am total food snob, so this book was right up my alley. Although my one complaint is that it has too much fascinating information about things I love, which is hardly a complaint at all.

[megan]

This is a really excellent book if you want to know more about how to pick the best ingredients for cooking--what to skimp on and what to really indulge in. I wish there were more recipes and I'm a big fan of pictures with recipes--so that's why it doesnt' get 5 stars.

[taylor cocalis]

one can not help but love ari. . . his writing is laid back, funny, approachable, and enlightening.

great book to just pick up and read bits at a time. excellent resource for history, production, traditions, and enjoyment of food.

[Susan]

If $15 sounds like a lot of money for a sandwich, then I know you've never been to Zingerman's deli in Ann Arbor. It's worth it. This book explains why. It sort of tells you how to tell the reasons why some fancy foodstuffs are seriously superior, and others are just sucker bait.

[Noah]

Disclaimer: I did work at Zingerman's for about six years through high school and college.
That aside, this is a fantastic cookbook. Ari's recipes are easy to follow, and provides a whole lot of knowledge on the individual ingredients. Much more than just your average cookbook.

[Yasmeen]

This book is quite old, but it taught me how to choose the best ingredients and gave me pointers I couldn't find online. I absolutely recommend it to gourmands. In fact, everyone. Why buy something awful when you can educate yourself and buy the real stuff?

[Kelly Dunham]

Not suprising, I know.

Fav recipes include polenta with taleggio, pasta with pepper and pecorino (so quick and easy) and miguel's mother's macaroni.

[Christopher Prosser]

cookbooks

[Ben]

It made me love balsamic vinegar. Like, really love it. That alone makes this book worth it.

[Lynda]

Loved this book.

[Jessica]

The olive oil chapter has changed my life forever.

[Eric Hines]

food & cooking

[Silver_Raven]

hope its good.

silver raven

[Alisha O]

I was disappointed with this book. I didn't find it all that helpful or interesting.

[Karina Ghirdan]

So much good overall food information about buying and eating...