THE TOMATO FESTIVAL COOKBOOK: 150 Recipes That Make the Most of Your Crop of Lush, Vine-Ripened, Sun-Warmed, Fat, Juicy, Ready-to-Burst Heirloom Tomatoes

The majority of Americans have never tasted a good tomato. Thankfully, Davis-Hollander has devoted his life to saving future Americans from the trend of tasteless tomatoes bred for uniformity, "grown in the off-season with low levels of light, picked green, and artificially ripened and then shipped three thousand miles," via the heirloom seed-saving and propagation efforts of his Eastern Native Seed Conservancy, in western Massachusetts. Every year, participants in ENSC's Epicurean Tomato Festival celebrate the mind-blowing diversity of hundreds of generations-old tomato varieties in a full spectrum of shapes and colors, from Aunt Ruby's German Green to Cherokee Purple to Orange Banana. Davis-Hollander's first book brings together familiar preparations, like tomato sauce and ratatouille, with contemporary restaurant innovations like Blue Ginger's Candied Tomato Tart with Five-Spiced Hazelnut Crust and exotic dishes like West African Chicken, Peanut, and Tomato Stew, along with specific recommendations for the best-tasting heirlooms for each. Bursting with history and folklore, this is also a practical handbook for identifying, growing and preserving heirloom tomatoes with an appendix on buying and saving seeds and a glossary explaining the difference between open-pollinated, indeterminate and hybrid varieties. Davis-Hollander may offer more than even the most devoted tomato lover would ever want to know, but his book is worth the price if only for the crucial lesson that tomatoes should never be refrigerated. Two-color illus. throughout. (May)

Forecast: Davis-Hollander has little name recognition outside of a small network of local farmers and restaurants in the Northeast. However, Deborah Madison's name should help—she's a prominent vegetarian chef and cookbook author. The book follows the growing trend of buying and eating seasonal and locally grown food from farmers' markets.