At first glance, “Field to Feast: Recipes Celebrating Florida Farmers, Chefs, and Artisans” looks like your standard-issue cookbook.
First glances can be so deceiving.
This 300-page book by Pam Brandon, Katie Farmand and Heather McPherson is much more than a resource for cooks. Sure, it’s packed with mouthwatering recipes, from sips and starters (a goat’s milk panna cotta with arugula from Terk’s Acres in St. Augustine) on through desserts (a mango cobbler from Erickson Farm in Canal Point).
But few cookbooks offer a recipe for Florida swamp cabbage requiring “fresh swamp cabbage,” which, the authors note, can be found in specialty markets and at fish camps. And if you don’t know the difference between swamp cabbage and tatsoi, they’ve included a callalo-to-tupelo-honey glossary.
But “Field to Feast” also captures the personalities and passions of those who have embraced the Sunshine State’s meteorological diversity to create its culinary profile. The authors crosscut the peninsula, from the Panhandle to Homestead, into three parts, then each traveled thousands of miles and, we figure, consumed thousands of calories “rediscovering real food and the craftspeople behind it.”
They certainly had the food-writing chops to do it. Brandon, who has several books to her credit, and recipe developer/stylist Farmand work for Edible Orlando magazine. McPherson is the food editor/restaurant critic of the Orlando Sentinel, a Tribune Co. newspaper.
The authors’ focus was on those united by a “desire to be good stewards of the earth.” So you’ll meet Don and Katie Chafin of the Going Bananas organic banana grove in Homestead (with their recipe for banana bread pudding with island rum sauce) and 3 Boys Farm’s Robert Tornello, who grows fruits and vegetables hydroponically in Ruskin. In Umatilla, you’ll find Dick and Marti Waters at Palm Ridge Reserve producing sipping whiskey.
You’ll also find many notable chefs (with recipes, naturally). There’s Orlando’s Norman Van Aken (Ritz-Carlton Orlando Grande Lakes), DeLand’s Hari Pulapaka (Cress Restaurant), New Smyrna Beach’s Henry Salgado (Spanish River Grill) and Miami’s Michelle Bernstein (Michy’s, Sra. Martinez).
For food travelers as eager to visit an olive grove or dairy farm as they are to bake on the beach, there’s a chapter titled “Where to Find the Farms, Chefs and Artisans.” Its five pages detail the address, phone and website for each farm, ranch, artisan and chef in the book. Starred entries indicate which are open to the public or offer tours when booked in advance.
“Field to Feast: Recipes Celebrating Florida Farmers, Chefs, and Artisans”
By Pam Brandon, Katie Farmand and Heather McPherson
University Press of Florida, $28
