The China Study Family Cookbook: 100 Recipes to Bring Your Family to the Plant-Based Table

Giving a thoroughly misleading title to The China Study Family Cookbook is unfortunate. Readers presume this family cookbook is on Chinese cooking. Nevertheless, this purely vegan cookbook presents a collection of nice plant-based but not Chinese recipes. Author Del Stroufe suggests involving everyone in the family, including young children, in menu planning, meal preparation, and cooking. Whether this is realistic in your family is another question. The recipes featured use oil-free cooking and oil- and sugar-free baking. If you are switching from traditional cooking and baking, expect totally different textures and flavors in the final products. The recipes are well-written, suitable for even beginners in the kitchen, using relatively few ingredients that most markets and health food stores carry. Recipes are marked with one or several symbols signifying grains, legumes, roots, leaves, flowers, nuts, mushrooms, and fruits—somewhat confusing and superfluous designations. Recipe layouts are good, though some recipes continue inconveniently on overleaf pages. Photo illustrations are also good. Stroufe likes to use recipe titles from the traditional kitchen, such as chorizo, sausage, cheese sauce, bologna. Most recipes have Notes for the Cook and Recipe Tip notations. The index is cross-referenced and complete.