A Feast of Fruits

Includes recipes for appetizers, soups, salads, sauces, preserves, and main courses using apples, bananas, cherries, lemons, oranges, pears, and other fruits

A number of food writers have been jumping onto the fruit bandwagon with books about the benefits of more fruit in one's diet. Riely's book is a welcome addition to the genre. Because fruits need little sugar or fat to bring out flavor, the bulk of the recipes are fairly low-cal. Happily, Riely, a food consultant and writer whose work has appeared in Bon Appetit and Gourmet , hasn't been content to stick just with "healthy" dishes. Her book, which follows an abecedarium in outline, features some old standbys like peach melba and apple pie. There are also out-and-out caloric indulgences--rum raisin ice cream--and charmingly unusual foods, like "Yorkshire Mousies." Readers can put together a soup-to-nuts dinner using her book. Chilled tomato-orange soup, followed by shrimp grilled with ginger, lime and coriander butter, and fresh blueberry tart with mascarpone, washed down with Nantucket fog cutters, is one potential menu. Each chapter is introduced with an authoritative discussion of that particular fruit's history and how to shop for and store it. The recipes are well-written and provide do-ahead tips when practical. Riely includes a chapter on more exotic fruits, such as the atemoya and tamarillo, with a brief description of each and suggestions on how it can be cooked.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

This is a lovely collection of dozens of fruit-based recipes both sweet and savory. Riely, a food writer and consultant, concentrates primarily on commonly available fruits, which these days include mangoes and papayas as well as apples and pears, but she does append a brief chapter on exotic fruits. Recipes are imaginative and fresh, with some as homey as Winter Fruit Compote and Cherry Almond Compote; and others as elegant as Scallops in Orange Butter Sauce and Pomegranate and Endive Salad. Rolce Payne and Dorrit Senior's Cooking with Fruit ( LJ 3/15/92) includes somewhat more information on selection and preparation, but collections will want Riely's book as well. Highly recommended. BOMC HomeStyle Books alternate.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.