Culinary Arts (CULA): Meats & Other Proteins

This book is from the Williams-Sonoma Kitchen Library series.

This is the first culinary history of a truly remarkable fish. Author Elisabeth Townsend follows cod around the globe, showing how its pursuit began with the Vikings, and exploring its influence on human affairs ever since. The book looks at the different ways cod has been caught, cooked, and eaten, often by the descendants of explorers, enslaved people, and traders. The text examines the fish in the myths and legends of the North Atlantic, the West Indies, South America, West and Southeast Africa, and across the Indian Ocean to the Far East. It is a fascinating journey through cod fact and lore, and features delectable historical and contemporary recipes that showcase the myriad ways cod can be consumed.

Includes CD-ROM.

Reducing the amount of meat in our diet would have major environmental benefits, including reducing greenhouse gas emissions, pollution, deforestation, and biodiversity loss. Moreover, it would have wide-ranging ethical benefits by decreasing the huge number of livestock animals confined and killed each year for food. For consumers, there may also be health benefits from a diet with less meat, provided it was carefully planned. Advances in science and technology are revolutionizing the food industry, and making it easier for consumers worldwide to maintain a meatless diet. In this book, author David McClements outlines his own journey as a food scientist who became a vegetarian in solidarity with his daughter. In writing this book, he takes the viewpoint that there are no easy answers, and that everyone must make the decision to eat meat (or not) based on their own values. The book also discusses new technologies that are being developed to create alternatives to meat, including plant-based meat, cultured (lab-grown) meat, microbial meat, and insect meat.

This book guides the reader on a country-by-country tour of sausage, describing and explaining the different types of sausage found in each region; how they're made; how they're used; and if they're fresh, dried, semi-dried, part-cooked, or cooked. The text features 330 varieties of sausage, with full-color photographs of each, including wursts, salamis, saucissons, kielbasa, merguez, chorizos, bangers, snags, black puddings, haggis, and more; supporting notes describing the flavor of the sausages; 12 step-by-step techniques demonstrating how to make your own sausages; and 48 classic recipes.

Sushi and sashimi are by now a global sensation and have become perhaps the best known of Japanese foods -- but they are also the most widely misunderstood. This book reveals that sushi began as a fermented food with a sour taste, used as a means to preserve fish. The text traces sushi's development from China to Japan and then internationally, and from street food to high-class cuisine. Included are two dozen historical and original recipes that show the diversity of sushi and how to prepare it. Written by an expert on Japanese food history, this book is a must-read for understanding sushi's past, its variety and sustainability, and how it became one of the world's greatest anonymous cuisines.

Naturally rich in vitamins and minerals, oysters are one of the oldest known and most widely enjoyed foods consumed by humans. Varying in size from as small as a grape to as large as a dinner plate, the oyster has driven countries toward discovery and exploration. It has been the food of the rich and the sustenance of the poor. Renowned for its supposed aphrodisiac quality, it has inspired writers, poets, painters, and lovers.