Tea Chings: The Tea and Herb Companion: Appreciating the Varietals and Virtues of Fine Tea and Herbs
Author: Ron Rubin
Novice sippers and tea aficionados alike can journey from the tea gardens of Asia to the tearooms of Europe and North America, sampling the finest teas in this beautifully designed, illustrated book about the benefits, flavors, cultural lore, and 5000-year-old history of the long-honored brew. Provided by the Ministers of the Republic of Tea, which, according to Conde Nast Traveler, "elevates tea to the status of wine," these fascinating and inspirational pages will serve as your guide to the leaves, plants, and manufacture of teas and other botanicals used in making wondrous infusions. They will inform you about the medicinal benefits of teas and herbs from all over the world.
They will give you answers to such questions as: What makes green tea different from black tea...and herbal "teas" different from all others? What do Orange Pekoe, English Breakfast, tannic acid, and "naturally flavored" really mean? How did tea bags, iced tea, "high tea," and the spiritual art of the Japanese tea ceremony come to be? What are the ingredients and health benefits of yerba mate, rooibos, chai, and Pu-erh? And you will discover much more TeaMinded knowledge, as well as delight in illustrations, maps, recipes, and inspired epigraphs.
In the words of the Minister of Travel, "Throughout these pages, an auspicious journey awaits. For sage or novice, this pilgrimage beckons all to celebrate what has been revered for thousands of years as the drink of humanity." In keeping with its whimsical identity as an independent republic, people working for The Republic of Tea are not managers or vice presidents; the company designates its employees as Ministers and Ambassadors, its customers Citizens, and its sales outlets Embassies. Ron Rubin and Stuart Avery Gold, are "Ministers" of The Republic of Tea, one of the most successful and fastest-growing cachet brands in America today. Headquartered in Novato, California
Go to: Good Housekeeping Smart Carb Suppers or Quick Low Carb
Wild Seasons: Gathering and Cooking Wild Plants of the Great Plains
Author: Kay Young
For nature lovers as well as cooks, there's plenty to whet the appetite in this unique field guide-cum-cookbook. Starting with the first plants ready for eating in the early spring (watercress and nettles) and following the sequence of harvest through the late fall (persim-mons and Jerusalem artichokes), Kay Young offers full, easy-to-follow directions for identifying, gathering, and preparing some four dozen edible wild plants of the Great Plains. And since most of the plants occur elsewhere as well, residents of other regions will find much of interest here. 'This is not a survival book," writes the author; "only those plants whose flavor and availability warrant the time and effort to collect or grow them are included." The nearly 250 recipes range from old-time favorites (poke sallet; catnip tea; horehound lozenges; hickory nut cake; a cupboardful of jams, jellies, and pies) to enticing new creations (wild violet salad, milkweed sandwiches, cattail pollen pancakes, day-lily hors d'oeuvres, prickly-pear cactus relish). Reflecting the author's conviction that just as we can never go back to subsisting wholly on wild things, neither should we exclude them from our lives, this book serves up generous portions of botanical information and ecological wisdom along with good food.
Publishers Weekly
Focusing on the Great Plains, Young, a naturalist at the Chet Ager Nature Center in Lincoln, Nebr., tells us where to find and how to use various plants. ``When I was growing up in Nebraska, many families still used wild plants on a regular basis, and as a child, I helped my mother gather greens in spring and make wild fruit jams and jellies in autumn. When I had my own family, I carried on these traditions,'' she explains. And why? ``Not only are certain wild plants nutritious and tasty,'' she notes, but ``the gathering of them involves the important processes of exploration, discovery and learning. . . . Certainly, garnering part of one's living from wild things creates a keen awareness and appreciation of the natural world and its cycles.'' And so, we learn what to do with stinging nettles: dry them, pulverize them into powder, make noodles from them, or freeze them for future use. With mulberries: bake pies, stew jams, bake cookies; and more of the same for nuts, fruits, vegetables and various plants. Young's book awakens curiosity about the uses of nature, and it also rouses respect--she doesn't want to tamper with wild things, but merely to borrow some of their bounty. Illustrated. (Sept.)
Table of Contents:
| Acknowledgments | ix | |
| Introduction | xi | |
| Glossary of Botanical Terms | xvii | |
| Glossary of Cooking Terms | xxiii | |
| Watercress | 1 | |
| Stinging Nettles | 6 | |
| Wood Nettles | 13 | |
| Dandelions | 16 | |
| Dock | 23 | |
| Wild Violets | 30 | |
| Asparagus | 36 | |
| Catnip | 41 | |
| Pokeweed | 44 | |
| Lambs-quarters | 49 | |
| Milkweed Shoots | 53 | |
| Yellow Wood Sorrel | 58 | |
| Pineapple-weed | 60 | |
| Wild Roses | 63 | |
| Wild Strawberries | 68 | |
| Missouri Gooseberries | 75 | |
| Prickly-pear Cactus Pads | 81 | |
| Cattails | 86 | |
| Mint | 95 | |
| Day-lilies | 100 | |
| Elderberry Flowers | 104 | |
| Horehound | 109 | |
| Milkweed Buds and Flowers | 113 | |
| Wild Onions | 117 | |
| Mulberries | 121 | |
| Purslane | 133 | |
| Buffalo Currants | 137 | |
| Sandcherries | 142 | |
| Juneberries | 150 | |
| Milkweed Pods | 157 | |
| Raspberries | 161 | |
| Blackberries | 168 | |
| Chokecherries and Wild Blackcherries | 175 | |
| May-apple | 186 | |
| Leadplant | 190 | |
| Wild Plums | 194 | |
| Wild Grapes | 201 | |
| Rose Hips | 207 | |
| Prickly-pear Cactus Fruits | 211 | |
| Smooth Sumac | 215 | |
| Highbush Cranberries | 219 | |
| Elderberry Fruit | 223 | |
| Groundcherries | 229 | |
| Hazelnuts | 237 | |
| Hickory Nuts | 242 | |
| Black Walnuts | 248 | |
| Pecans | 258 | |
| Pawpaws | 269 | |
| Buffaloberries | 273 | |
| Wild Persimmons | 277 | |
| Jerusalem Artichokes | 282 | |
| Appendix A | Canning, Freezing, and Drying | 289 |
| Appendix B | Basic Recipes | 299 |
| Additional Sources of Information | 303 | |
| List of Contributors | 305 | |
| Index of Plants | 307 | |
| Index of Recipes by Plant | 310 | |
| Index of Recipes by Food Category | 315 |
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