Review by Booklist Review
Much of the world subsists on rice. Americans outside South Carolina and Louisiana still regard rice as something exotic and tend to eat it on special occasions and not as a diet staple. Their anxieties about cooking rice properly have produced Minute Rice and its effort-saving properties. Interest in vegetarian diet has begun to change these Americans' attitudes. The ready availability of new breeds of rice with distinctive flavors and aromas has also contributed to this new interest. Jasmine rice, pecan rice, basmati rice, and similar varieties enhance the flavors of the dishes in which they appear. Robertson starts her treatise on rice cookery with simple instructions on preparing rice properly, demystifying it for the fretful cook. Her exclusively vegetarian recipes mirror the cooking schools of the Far East, emphasizing the panoply of spices that flavor the bland grain. The author so dedicates herself to vegetarianism that even her recipe for old-fashioned rice pudding calls for soy milk. --Mark Knoblauch
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.