Buried Treasures: Tasty Tubers of the World
Brooklyn Botanic Gardenden (BBG) announces the release of its newest All-Region Guide, Buried Treasures: Tasty Tubers of the World. This is BBG’s first handbook devoted to root vegetables, the underground delights that have sustained cultures all over the world for millennia.
Buried Treasures: Tasty Tubers of the World takes intrepid gardeners and curious epicures on a global tour of edible roots, tubers, corms, and rhizomes, including such underground treasures as Hawaiian elephant’s ear, Japanese devil’s tongue, Chinese sacred lotus, South American canna, and hardy North American spring beauties and groundnuts. With contributions from leading experts Scott D. Appell, James J. Lang, Leda Meredith, and BBG’s Alessandro Chiari, Buried Treasures is a handy resource with detailed tips on buying, growing, designing with, harvesting and cooking more than 30 featured vegetables.
All the plants are illustrated with striking color photos showing both the tasty tubers usually hidden belowground and the attractive and unusual foliage and flowers above. Virtually all the plants in this book also make a garden-worthy aboveground display. Tropical giants like elephant’s ear and yautia are exotic accents in a summer border or container, then transition indoors when the days get cooler to become show-stopping houseplants. Or they may be harvested and cooked into tasty dishes. Hardy plants like the North American natives spring beauty and jack-in-the-pulpit can stay in the ground year-round, providing an appealing floral display in spring and hearty nourishment in fall.
Beth Hanson, editor of Buried Treasures, says, This book is a cornucopia of information about the mysterious world of geophytes, as tubers are known to botanists. We wanted to demystify and explore the little-understood tuberous plants that have sustained civilizations for millennia. In addition to the fascinating history and lore of tubers that have captivated ethnobotanists, the book offers tips on how to forage responsibly for wild tubers, how to grow tubers in your home garden, and how to enjoy them in the kitchen. And with more shapes, sizes, colors, and textures than a fashion magazine, the book shows how these exotic plants dress up any meal and steal the show at the dining table.Hanson added, anyone who loves plants, food, or both is sure to be thrilled by the encyclopedia of more than 30 tubers in this easy-to-use guide.
Buried Treasures features:
- A feast of more than 30 tropical and hardy tubers that are easy to grow, great to look at, and delicious to eat
- Detailed tips for growing and harvesting
- Delicious recipes from around the world
- An extensive list of nursery sources
Buried Treasures provides great recipes from around the world and shows readers how to pick out the healthiest tubers and plants at markets, where to buy hard-to-find varieties, and how to make more tubers at home. Dig in!
The New York Times Book Review called BBG’s handbook series a “brilliant collection of little gardening handbooks…Each one takes a small bite of subject matter and chews it thoroughly… the mix of common sense, practical advice and, on occasion, pointed debunking…makes these slender volumes do the work of books twice their size and three times their price. And what the handbooks…lack in acreage they make up for in authority.
Ordering Information
Buried Treasures: Tasty Tubers of the World (ISBN-10: 1-889538-34-5) is available at a discount direct from Brooklyn Botanic Garden’s online store at shop.bbg.org, or by calling 718-623-7286. It is also available in bookstores and at garden centers for $9.95 in the U.S./$11.95 in Canada. For wholesale ordering information, call Sterling Publishing at 800-367-9692 or visit its website at www.sterlingpub.com. To receive a free brochure of current and past handbook titles, call 718-623-7241.
Brooklyn Botanic Garden handbooks have been published continuously since 1945. They are the only series of popular gardening books published by a botanic garden in North America. Written by top gardening experts and packed with spectacular color photos and illustrations, All-Region Guides offer 120 pages full of ideas on how to make your garden beautiful, bountiful, and ecologically sensible.
Lori Bushway | Hard copy pubs., Resources