Start with the veg
ALICE Zaslavsky is not joking when she calls her cookbook In Praise of Veg a ‘‘hefty tome’’.
In nearly 500 pages,
Zaslavsky has produced 50 of her ‘‘alltime favourites’’ as well as plenty of information on what makes the vegetables she uses in them special.
Zaslavksy, an Australian cook, food writer and broadcaster, who aims to expand people’s cooking and eating horizons, describes her family’s way of eating as ‘‘plant forward’’ in that they start with the vegetables and build dishes around them.
‘‘I believe most of us have a desire to flex our flexitarian muscle — to grab more greens, reduce the load we put on the environment and take more care with the proteins we choose. But often we don’t know where to start.’’
Her dishes occasionally include some flaked fish or bacon as a secondary element although she also includes substitutions for those going vegetarian.
Eating a vegetableheavy diet comes naturally to Zaslavsky — she grew up in Georgia in the former Soviet Union, where fresh produce was the basis of their diet out of necessity and culture.
The book is broken up into colourcoded chapters based on the vegetable’s colour, for example red for capsicums, radish, tomatoes and rhubarb.
‘‘Part of what makes vegetables one of nature’s wonders is the available palette of colours to tantalise the palate.’’
She also includes plenty of
tips on ways to use leftovers, shortcuts or ways to use a dish differently, which usually take
the form of soup, sauce, stew, salad or sandwich.