Raw the Uncook Book New Vegetarian Food for Life. / Juliano Brotman with Erica Lenkert. William Morrow, an Imprint of Harper Collins, 1999.
What could be more appetizing, brighter tasting, more popular as a morning beverage, than fresh-squeezed orange juice? Of course depending on the kind of orange, juice from it has a tart-sweet to modestly- to extremely-sweet taste. Used in rawing recipes as one of the liquids it can really tone down or amplify the flavor of your dish. The same with limes, from the very rotund, very acid-green, very acrid, sour juice to key limes—they’re small, with blotchy yellow skin that can be thin and drier, that when squeezed yield an exotic-spicy juice. It’s only lemons that are true, varying only slightly if not quite ripe.
So Juliano’s recipes call for fresh-squeezed orange or other citrus juice, as the sweet flavor to balance olive oil, garlic and often ginger. That goes for dressings, sauces, stir-frys, hummus, soups that are exquisitely crafted with their main ingredients, and modeled by herbs and spices, Nama Shoyu, and jalapeno peppers. In no way will the result be bland or sugary, but mature and balanced. Orange juice is not in every dish in the book, but its versatility in rendering sauces as smooth and velvety is a major character of raw recipes.
There’s wisdom in combining whole and natural foods and again wisdom in eating them raw. Once a vegetable is cooked, the life force of its enzymes is severely depleted, even non-existent. A wilted or cooked salad is such an example, and not very appetizing, if you’re expecting a cold and crunchy raw dish. Rather than eating food that has the capacity to do work in the bodily systems that provide energy, we generally eat cooked food that has good value, but not life force value.
But, are you going to do without a cooked meal just for the hear-tell health benefits of a raw one? You might if the dish tasted even better than the sum of its ingredients: that’s the promise Juliano makes. The dynamic of taste renders dishes that are nature-pure and full of life energy that hasn’t been modified or converted by heat.
Recipes named after the restaurant “RAW” have been tested by numerous patrons… Many of the less obviously restaurant-style recipes seem to be spontaneous creations of the chef’s knowledge and experience. There’s a lot to choose from, and you’re not confined in any sense to “health food”, or to orange juice, for that matter. Rather, this is a book of dishes laid out as for a multi-course dinner with international flair: choose from sushi, pizza, pasta, and many more, with desserts, drinks, dressings, condiments, and even RAW dairy. Were we awake and tasting live food back in the late ‘90s, we would already be familiar with the rich, vibrant palate that is 100% raw. While there is still organic in the supermarket, it’s not too late now to experience raw, live food.
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