Antonio Carluccio's Vegetables

There are not many people who can claim to have been collecting, cooking, and devising recipes for mushrooms for more than sixty years, but Antonio Carluccio is one of them. Carluccio's interest in mushrooms-his mycological education-began at the age of seven when he went on mushroom hunts with his father and has culminated in his Neal Street Restaurant in London.

Today, mushrooms are more popular then ever. Chefs everywhere use these delectable morsels to provide a powerful punch of flavor, without adding many calories or fat.
The book begins with a complete field guide, in which forty species are identified with photos. To ensure safety, poisonous look-alike species are also meticulously documented. Then comes a veritable feast of more than 150 mushroom recipes-from classic Italian preparations to Asian-inspired creations and contemporary dishes. Mouthwatering photos accompany each recipe and evoke the earthy sensuality that only mushrooms can bring to the table. In The Complete Mushroom Book, Antonio Carluccio shares the excitement of the hunt and a lifetime of expertise in the kitchen with a new generation of enthusiasts eager to reap the pleasures of cooking with mushrooms.

As a compulsive book collector, I often justify the purchase of a book solely on the presence of one good idea comprising not much more than a page or two, but you may not have such liberal criteria when laying out the long green for a book, especially for bone white plants.

It's coverage of mushroom identification and distinction of culinary from toxic is weak in that the book does not give a consistant photographic coverage to all species. I would be extremely nervous if I knew someone was using only this book as a field guide. A quick comparison photographs for the edible boletus badius on page 33 with the toxic russula emetica on page 71 shows how similar two very different mushrooms can look. The comparison is scarier when you see that the two species flourish at the same time of the year. My main point is that to a non-mycologist, this appears to be a very inadequate field guide. Much better would be one species per page with much more consistant coverage over all species.

While the title of the book refers to all mushrooms, it's emphasis is clearly on wild mushrooms. About 75 percent of all the recipes call for wild mushrooms, primarily morels and many of the recipes calling for cultivated species call for unusual or expensive species, up to and including truffles.

So what does that leave for the non-mushroom hunter living in Brooklyn? Here are some reasons for buying this book:

The well written text and good photography provides a worthy vicarious experience of the thrills of mushroom hunting in Devon, England.

The recipes give several worthy methods for preserving mushrooms, including drying and pickling. This is the material I would pick to primarily justify the purchase. I have not seen it anywhere else.

Even if you substitute the humble Pennsylvania button mushroom or the slightly more upscale cremini for the blue stocking morels and procinis, you get a wealth of recipes to add to a vegetarian diet. The recipes draw heavily from French and Italian cuisine, but they include a broad selection from various oriental cuisines as well. Even a fair number of German and Spanish dishes are included. Oddly, there seems to be practically no recipes for the portobello.

You also get useful practical tips on handling and eating mushrooms. The book makes it clear that almost every mushroom is healthier to eat cooked than to eat raw. I have heard it said that even our darling little Kennet Square button mushrooms have toxins which must be cooked to remove the toxins. Give the raw mushrooms a pass the next time you hit the salad bar. The information on taking special care with raw mushrooms and alcohol is pretty chilling, but again, as testified by the long popularity of Coq au Vin, this danger is eliminated by thorough cooking.

In general, I would rate the culinary advice on mushroom technique to be very useful.

Since I am very fond of cookbooks on single subjects, I recommend this book for the recipes and techniques and background on mushroom culture and collection in the wild, as long as you keep the wild part to your armchair. The price is a bit high, so I would not click on the order button without some check on alternate titles, especially the volume by Jane Grigson, `The Mushroom Feast' which I have not yet had the pleasure to sample.

Delicious color photographs of many of the dishes are sprinkled throughout the book, which can't help but inspire you to rush into your kitchen and try a few of these recipes. I often grab this book off my shelf when I'm looking for inspiration for another vegetable side dish, or light lunch entree.
I like that the recipes follow the tradional Italian ideals of simplicity, enhancing and not overpowering the natural flavor of the vegetables.

Antonio Carluccio brings you the best of traditional and contemporary Italian vegetable dishes, and presents it in a book so attractive you'll want to leave it on your coffee table!

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