Why is wine considered more sophisticated even though the production of beer is much more technologically complex? Why is wine touted for its health benefits when beer has more nutrition value? Why does wine conjure up images of staid dinner parties while beer denotes screaming young partiers? Charles Bamforth explores several paradoxes involving beer and wine, paying special attention to the culture surrounding each. He argues that beer can be just as grown-up and worldly as wine and be part of a healthy, mature lifestyle. Both beer and wine have histories spanning thousands of years. This is the first book to compare them from the perspectives of history, technology, the market for each, and the effect that they have on human health and nutrition.

Chocolate is more than just a sweet. It's a rich sensation; a comfort; a stimulant, and it's good for you—in moderation. Of course chocolate is also the magic ingredient in many delicious dishes. This book explores the story of this delectable food & reveals an eventful history, explaining why more of us are buying Fair Trade chocolate. Accompanied by 50 recipes from around the world this book gives a chocolate boost to the mind & the body.

For Patrice Newell, olive oil is a gift from the earth. Its origins are ancient, its uses manifold and its flavours sublime. It can turn an ordinary meal into a feast and bring out the connoisseur in all of us. This passion is shared by the twenty cooks and chefs who have contributed their favourite recipes to this glorious book on the culinary pleasures of Australian olive oil. Stephanie Alexander bakes crisp, golden bread and Maggie Beer perfects an oil-moistened apple cake. Tony Bilson anoints a rich fish stock and Damien Pignolet dresses delicious French salads. Kylie Kwong shows how the heady tastes of traditional Chinese food can benefit from a generous drizzle of the good oil. Patrice takes us on a journey through the olive groves of Australia, arguing for local oil over imported oil. She teaches us how to identify good oil and recognise the evils of rancidity. She invites us into the kitchen of her Hunter valley homestead, in the midst of a 6000-tree olive grove, and introduces us to the basics: marinades, dressings, mayonnaise, winter soups, summer salads, infusions and sweet treats. She pauses to tell us of the benefits of good fat, the dangers of unsustainable farming and the indignities of many manufactured foods. Beautifully photographed by Simon Griffiths, Tree to Table will inspire you to make a bottle of Australian olive oil the focus of your cooking and the centrepiece of your table.

Tessa Kiros believes that food is the essence of any country's people - a quilt that is patchworked together with their language, culture and songs. When she takes her family to live and travel in Portugal, she is captivated by the country and charmed by the old-fashioned way of doing things. Portugal has everything she loves - the markets, the sea, the beautiful old pousadas - but she would have gone for the pasteis de nata alone. In Piri Piri Star Fish: Portugal Found, Tessa embroiders the recipes, traditions and Portuguese way of living together with her own unique colours and threads. Some of the present day wonder of this small country can be attibuted to her great history during the Age of Discovery: when the world beyond nearby lands and seas was little more than a mysterious dream to most Europeans, this land of bay leaves, bacalhau and piri piri stretched out her roots over the globe.

The Elements of Cooking is an opinionated reference work destined to stand among the great works of the kitchen. It is slim, clear and to the point: here are the things you need to know how to do, here are the key words of the language of food, and here are the absolute essentials that every great chef knows. The Elements of Cooking defines vital terms, explains the fundamental ratios of important preparations (sauces, cakes, etc.) so that you will never need a recipe again, and provides countless chef's "secrets". In eight introductory essays, Ruhlman pares down the essentials of great cooking: understanding how to salt food; making stock; making sauces; using heat properly; working with eggs; having the right tools (there are only five essentials); what to read and use as a resource; and lastly, and most importantly, the use of finesse, that extra attention to detail that transforms food into something glorious. This is a book that can be returned to time and again, and its lessons practised for a lifetime.

An everyday cookbook showing how easy it is to buy, cook and eat Fairtrade foods – for people who care where their food comes from. A mouth-watering cookbook of fantastic Fairtrade recipes, each featuring the most important ingredient of all: they are made with produce that is seeded, nurtured and provided by farmers and suppliers getting a better, fairer deal for their work. Cook up over 100 mouth-watering 'Light Bites' snacks, 'Fill Me Up' main courses, and 'Guilty Pleasures' sweet dishes using Fairtrade ingredients; from One Pot Chicken to Secret Soup, Simple Mango Sorbet to Marma Banana Crunchies. Recipes from a host of top cooks, stars and celebrities; including Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Sophie Grigson, Joanne Harris, Steve Redgrave and Ruth Roger. A portion of the cover price for every Fairtrade Cookbook sold will be donated to Fairtrade.