Introduction

This is not a vegetarian cookbook. It is a compendium of great recipes in which vegetables from all over the world play a leading role. Like its predecessor, The Cook’s Canon, it contains 101 classic recipes every informed cook should know about. My ruling principle in making this personal—but I hope not capricious—selection was the same as for the earlier collection: to winnow 101 recipes into a plausible pantheon of the most brilliant influential, delicious, and enduring vegetable dishes human beings had created since they learned to cook.