The recipes provide a veritable smorgasbord of tastes, like homemade tempeh, sauerkraut, and borscht, along with a basic description of yogurt and cheese-making, complete with vegan alternatives. Whether you prefer to wash down your meal with Elderberry wine or Nepalese rice beer, there's something here to satisfy any palate.

Katz, a leading expert on the history of these foods, has written a revolutionary and informative culinary guide he calls "a cultural manifesto." He has experimented with many forms of fermentation and has developed and collected a wide range of techniques and recipes from around the world....

Eight years in the writing, Karen MacNeil's THE WINE BIBLE takes any reader, at any level of interest and sophistication, and offers the one thing guaranteed to increase his or her pleasure in wine-knowledge. It's illustrated throughout with maps, photographs, charts, wine labes, and has hundreds of boxes featuring historical tidbits, fun wine facts, and wine destinations while traveling....

    Though it drinks deep of its subject, Karen MacNeil's Wine Bible deftly avoids two traps many wine books fall into: talking down to wine novices or talking up to more experienced enophiles. The book avoids these traps through MacNeil's obvious, and infectious, love of her subject, which comes out in almost every sentence of the book, and which lets her talk about wine in a way that combines the good teacher, the trusted friend, and the expert sommelier. As director of the wine program at the Culinary Institute of America in Napa Valley, California, MacNeil is one of the world's true experts on wine. After reading a chapter on the Burgenland, for example, you've learned about the region's sweet wines while feeling like you're actually there, toasting a glass of Cuvee Suss with the author. It is this passion that leads to describing an Italian riservas as "mesmerizing" and a Cabernet Sauvignon as having "texture like cashmere."

The Wine Bible is broken into countries, hitting all of the major wine producers and most of the minor ones. Each section gives detailed descriptions of the country's wines (with chapters on individual regions when necessary), highlighting specific wine producers and individual wines, as well as talking about local foods, customs, and other tidbits that add to the reading experience. MacNeil begins her journey through the world's wine with an invaluable section on "Mastering Wine," which lets a reader get ready before uncorking separate sections. --A.J. Rathbun...