Pulp

March 6, 2023
After tackling vegetables in Ruffage and beans and grains in Grist, Michigan chef Berens turns her focus to Midwestern fruit in this rewarding outing. She kicks off with a handy “baker’s toolkit” of elements such as bread doughs, cake batters, honeycomb brittle, and pickling brine. The bulk of the no-nonsense recipes are then arranged by fruit, from apples to drupelet berries (raspberries, blackberries, and mulberries) to melons, then subdivided by cooking technique and sorted into savory or sweet. Berens has a knack for improving familiar dishes: salads of apples, arugula, and goat cheese with pumpernickel croutons should be built in layers on a serving platter to ensure equal distribution, while a chocolate pudding is kicked up with the addition of cherries that have been soaked in coffee syrup. After “you’ve grazed to boredom” on raw blueberries, use them in a baked dish of chicken and corn bread. Innovative combinations abound: pears meet bacon and onion in a tart, cream for panna cotta is infused with parsnips, and cantaloupe halves are filled with ice cream and drizzled with olive oil. Many recipes are for full meals, including the tempting “Sunday at the Pub,” which consists of poached quince, duck breast, potatoes, and citrusy relish. Locally focused but widely applicable, this will have home chefs heading to the farmers market or produce aisle with renewed confidence.

Starred review from April 1, 2023

Berens (Ruffage; Grist) returns with another winner, this time centered on fruit. The tone of the book is smart, engaged, and give-me-something-good. After a forceful and wide-ranging introduction about farming practices, market forces, production, and food waste, she opens with an 80-page baker's toolkit. This collection of recipes includes cakes, cookies, breads, curds, creams, and more. A lack of abundant illustrations makes it read more like a preface than the rich collection of foundations it is. Part two brings the focus to individual fruits. Berens begins by detailing how to select and store fruit and recognize ripeness; then she offers pairs of recipes, one savory, one sweet, based on a variety of preparation methods including (depending on the fruit) raw, roasted, grilled, poached, stewed, and baked. There are also notes on preserving each fruit in a variety of ways. While not vegetarian, the book skews that way. Among the recipes are baked ricotta with black-pepper raspberries; grape custard pie; cashew cauliflower with ground-cherry glaze and toum; and pear, bacon, and onion tart. VERDICT Berens is a cookbook superstar, and her innovative way of creating books, and talking about and sharing food, is a pleasure to read.--Neal Wyatt

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