Beverages Books

This book is great! ! It is a must have for anyone who has an interest in learning about different wines. The author Steven Miller really helped me to choose some great tasting wines for my wine collection. This wine guide was very well written and easy to read. I recommend this book for all wine novices.

I buy this wine guide every year. It's very helpful and easy to use.

This is the second edition of this book we have purchased. It is not comprehensive but is easy-to-read, portable and very useful. Appropriate for persons with less or more knowledge of wine.

This book is really good. Have used it for planning wine and food pairing parties at our country club. good recipes and fun wine suggestions

I happened on this book by chance and I must say it really is a great reference for anyone in the service business! It is concise and well layed out so you can easily find detailed information on wines, sauces, cocktails, cooking methods etc. The only problem is that there is that most items in the book are not explained in depth, but then again its a reference.

Fun to read, great exercises to test your taste. Primarily a text for students it includes some amazing recipes specially chosen to appreciate the subtle flavors of lots of wines. Can make for wonderful tasting dinner amongst friends. Highly enjoyable!

como se debe realizar la maduración en los platano

This is one of those very rare, very valuable books which (like the "Origin of Species") takes a broad worldwide view of prehistory and whilst maintaining the highest scholarly standards, seeks to draw general conclusions which will stand up to scientific scrutiny. As the author remarks in his preface "it is currently fashionable in our science to place heavy emphasis on the uniqueness of local events" whilst the broader view "tends to be frowned upon". Darwin would not have frowned and neither should we.

Cohen's book might have been called "The Origin of Agriculture". Ever since we all became aware that agriculture is a comparatively recent phenomenon in human history, those interested in the subject have puzzled their minds over why mankind abandoned the free and easy life of a hunter-gatherer for the laborious and monotonous existence of the peasant. And why did this change take place more or less simultaneously in several different parts of the world? Cohen's solution to this problem is immediately convincing and was a revelation to me. It happened because over-population caused a worldwide shortage of food. Every part of the habitable and accessible world had been colonised. There was no further room for mankind to expand into. There was an urgent need to devise some method by which a given area of land could support a greater number of people. And so, in Cohen's words "populations throughout the world... were forced to adjust to further increases in population by artificially increasing, not those resources which they preferred to eat, but those which responded well to human attention and could be made to produce the greatest number of edible calories per unit of land."

Why did the human population expand so fast when it did? Why was there such a sudden shortage of food? This book refers to the answer, but at first reading I missed the reference and didn't draw the significant conclusion. It was because human social organization and weapons technology had suddenly made man the master of nature. Within a comparatively short period of time, human hunters had caused the extinction of a large number of major mammal species throughout the world. Whilst the slaughter was going on, there had been plenty of food for everybody and populations had expanded. Once the process of extinction was more or less complete, food became very short indeed. Here Cohen relies on another scholar who also battled desperately to gain acceptance for a blindingly obvious general conclusion - Paul S. Martin. Martin's chapter on his "Quaternary Extinctions" tells the story.

Cohen's thesis is explored in painstaking detail, with evidence drawn from every continent and from many different sources. The book is not easy to read; the style is heavily academic; but it's worth the effort. First published in 1977, it should be reprinted and more widely known.

I bought this book in anticipation of taking my first college course (after graduating high school 17 years ago!). I have been reading it before the class starts because it is a very fascinating and comprehensive guide with (fairly) easy-to-understand explanations of the scientific breakdown of all of our favorite foods. Even if the class is cancelled, I will still keep this as a great compliment to my cookbooks!

This is the best I have read on this topic to date!

This book begins with "Since the philosophy of this book is that food irradiation needs no further justification, the wholesomeness of irradiated foods is covered from a historical perspective only" on page 12. Given the near hysteria some irresponsible advocacy groups have engaged in over this topic, perhaps more could be done in this text to counteract the bad science these groups employ. The conclusion in the food irradiation chemistry chapter states that "It is important to note that radiolytic changes that occur in food on irradiation are minimal and are no more significant than other food processing technologies". That would include cooking which creates many more profound changes in food. There are few of us that would consider going without cooking, therefore it is wise to consider this additional food safety tool.

There are many topics that receive in-depth treatment in this tome including: the differences between machine source and isotope treatments, meat and poultry irradiation, process control in facilities, irradiation of spices and minimally processed foods, and irradiation for phytosanitary purposes. Each topic is addressed by an expert in the field and contains historical data and a prognosis for the future. Each chapter has a bibliography that is a treasure in itself. The future of irradiation depends on the public's willingness to accept it. Books like this do a tremendous amount to dispel the irrational, unfounded concerns voiced by some and pave the way for widespread use.

If you read only one book about food irradiation, make it this book.