Uncooked

A shiny, high-flying contribution to the rather earthbound raw foods movement, this volume doesn't shy away from luxurious ingredients and glamorous presentations. Sensibly for a raw foods cookbook, the focus is primarily on traditional raw dishes like carpaccios, ceviches and salads comprised of thinly sliced vegetables and fruits. Some of these recipes, like Creamed Avocado with Osetra Caviar, are tasty; others, like a cold Strawberry, Pineapple, and Tomato Minestrone could put a less hardy soul off her lunch. Visually, this volume resembles a coffee-table book rather than something to dirty up in the kitchen-and it reads like one, too. Dishes are organized not by some logical division like ""breakfasts"" and ""desserts,"" but less usefully by main ingredient: pineapple, foie gras, duck and so on. Further, the book is so over-designed that sometimes lists of ingredients are nowhere near the instructions for what to do with them. The best offerings in this volume are the brief histories of certain foodstuffs (who knew that the word ""apple"" was once used to ""designate the edible fruit of any tree""?) But a reader interested in such novelties could probably find them in a book unburdened by a hefty price tag and pages of sometimes bizarre recipes. 275 color illustrations.