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Sink your teeth into a big, bold, and unabashed celebration of a quintessential Wisconsin food. 

Wisconsin is famous for its world-class cheeses and its “beer state” moniker. But every Wisconsinite knows that no tailgate party or backyard barbecue is complete without a grill full of sizzling hot brats. Or Polish sausages. Or good ol’ Oscar Mayer wieners. From charcuterie boards to chorizo, sausage is an essential ingredient in the state’s cultural identity. In this lively, comprehensive ode to the link, writer and storyteller Jesse Brookstein embarks on a quest to show why Wisconsin is the sausage maker to the world. 

Best of the Wurst traces the long arc of sausage making in the state, starting with First Nations communities who used pemmican as a staple food source. It features subsequent immigrant groups—German, Polish, Italian, Thai, Mexican, and more—who brought their own sausage recipes and traditions, and lands squarely on today’s bustling sausage scene. A final chapter, “The Future of Sausage,” explores emerging trends, tastes, and technologies—offering a peek at what’s next for Wisconsin’s revered food. 

Brookstein travels the state to meet the people behind the links and captures the culture, craft, and quirks that make Wisconsin sausages unlike those found anywhere else.  Profiles of standout producers are threaded throughout, from household names like Usinger’s and Johnsonville to family-run shops that have fed communities for generations. Brookstein also highlights the professionals shaping the field today, including graduates of UW–Madison’s Master Meat Crafter Program and chefs who feature local sausage in their menus with pride. 

Readers will get insights from master butchers, small-town sausage savants, big-name producers, and superfans reflecting on hotly debated topics like seasonings, casings, and the eternal question: “Should you parboil?” And memorable traditions—such as Sheboygan’s double brat on a hard roll, the ceremonial slicing of La Crosse’s Golden Brat, Madison’s world’s largest Brat Fest, and the show-stealing Milwaukee Brewers’ Famous Racing Sausages—showcase the sausage’s indelible mark on the state. 

Featuring 150 color photos and packed with humor and an insider’s appreciation for the art of stuffing a perfect link, Best of the Wurst encases these stories, people, and places in a perfect blend of history and heart. Wisconsinites love eating sausages—and now you can enjoy reading about them too.

Why does food taste better when you know where it comes from? Because history—ecological, cultural, even personal—flavors every bite we eat. Whether it’s the volatile chemical compounds that a plant absorbs from the soil or the stories and memories of places that are evoked by taste, layers of flavor await those willing to delve into the roots of real food. In this landmark book, Gary Paul Nabhan takes us on a personal trip into the southwestern borderlands to discover the terroir—the “taste of the place”—that makes this desert so delicious.

To savor the terroir of the borderlands, Nabhan presents a cornucopia of local foods—Mexican oregano, mesquite-flour tortillas, grass-fed beef, the popular Mexican dessert capirotada, and corvina (croaker or drum fish) among them—as well as food experiences that range from the foraging of Cabeza de Vaca and his shipwrecked companions to a modern-day camping expedition on the Rio Grande. Nabhan explores everything from the biochemical agents that create taste in these foods to their history and dispersion around the world. Through his field adventures and humorous stories, we learn why Mexican oregano is most potent when gathered at the most arid margins of its range—and why foods found in the remote regions of the borderlands have surprising connections to foods found by his ancestors in the deserts of the Mediterranean and the Middle East. By the end of his movable feast, Nabhan convinces us that the roots of this fascinating terroir must be anchored in our imaginations as well as in our shifting soils.

If you're interested in cooking with herbs and want to use the best of Michigan and the Midwest's seasonal foods, then this is the cookbook for you.

The recipe section is written for both the novice and the more experienced cook. Each recipe has helpful information about serving suggestions and menu ideas. Scattered throughout the book are handy tips related to foods, herbs, and cooking. In addition, Michigan Herb Cookbook includes a section on herb growing and designing in which planting, growing, freezing, drying, and storage tips for over thirty herbs are explained in detail.

You will find over 150 recipes in the book's seven chapters. More than half are low-fat, and there are many vegetarian favorites. Also, a chapter devoted to condiments and "little extras" contains various herb blend, vinegar, chutney, pesto, and sauce recipes, such as Sun-Dried-Tomato Pesto and Roasted Red Pepper Sage Sauce.

Suzanne Breckenridge, formerly a ceramics and cooking instructor, is now a food stylist and caterer. Marjorie Snyder is a freelance food writer, a cooking teacher at a junior college, and cofounder and president of the Madison Wisconsin Herb Society.

This primer offers the recipes and techniques for mastering quick-slurper staples and luxurious from-scratch feasts. Albala made a different noodle soup every day for two years. His obsession yielded all you need to know about making stock bases, using dried or fresh noodles, and choosing from a huge variety of garnishes, flavorings, and accompaniments. He lays out innovative techniques for mixing and matching bases and noodles with grains, vegetables, and other ingredients drawn from an international array of cuisines. In addition to recipes both cutting edge and classic, Albala describes new soup discoveries he created along the way. There's advice on utensils, cooking tools, and the oft-overlooked necessity of matching a soup to the proper bowl. Finally, he sprinkles in charming historical details that cover everything from ancient Chinese millet noodles to that off-brand Malaysian ramen at the back of the ethnic grocery store.

Filled with more than seventy color photos and dozens of recipes, Noodle Soup is an indispensable guide for cooking, eating, and loving a universal favorite.

Many mushroom hunters prefer to do their foraging in the marketplace, where all the mushrooms are clearly labeled and safely edible. With this fact in mind, Arleen and Alan Bessette have written Taming the Wild Mushroom, one of the first cooking guides devoted exclusively to choosing and preparing the mushroom species now available in many grocery stores, supermarkets, and natural and whole foods markets.

A dozen wild and cultivated species are covered in the book, including White Button, King Bolete, Oyster, Chanterelle, Morel, Paddy Straw, Wood Ear, Shiitake, Enokitake, White Matsutake, Black Truffle, and Wine-cap Stropharia. Easy-to-understand descriptions and excellent color photographs of each species help market foragers choose mushrooms in peak condition. Fifty-seven original, species-specific recipes, from appetizers, soups, and salads to meat and vegetarian entrees to sauces and accompaniments, offer dozens of ways to savor the familiar and exotic flavors of these mushrooms. A mouth-watering photograph accompanies each recipe.

The abundance of seafood available from the northwest Gulf of Mexico includes hundreds of delicious species that are often overlooked by consumers. Celebrating this regional bounty, Texas Seafood showcases the expertise of longtime fishmongers and chefs PJ and "Apple Srimart" Stoops. Readers will find familiar fish like Red Snapper along with dozens of little-known finfish and invertebrates, including tunas, mackerels, rays, and skates, as well as bivalves, shrimps, crabs, and other varieties, many of which are considered “bycatch” (seafood that a fisher didn’t intend to catch), but that are no more difficult to prepare and just as delicious as those commonly found at your local supermarket.

The Stoopses provide a complete primer on sourcing these wild-caught delicacies, with fascinating details about habitats and life cycles as well as practical advice on how to discern quality. Texas Seafood concludes with simple, delectable recipes, many infused with the flavors of Apple’s Thai heritage. Dishes such as Steamed Curried Crab, Crispy White Shrimp, Escolar on a Grill with Green Mango Salad, Cast-Iron-Roasted Shortfin Mako Shark with Rio Grande Grapefruit, and Chicken-Fried Ribbonfish are just a few ways to savor the best of the Gulf.

More than a quarter of the people on earth eat peppers every day of their lives, and true pepper lovers are always looking for better-tasting, hotter peppers. This handy, reliable guide makes finding them easy, as capsicum expert Jean Andrews shows you how to identify and use 42 peppers, both fresh and dried, commonly available in North American markets.

Andrews describes each pepper in detail, starting with its size, color, fruit shape, flesh, and pungency. She gives its common names, sources, and uses, and indicates other peppers that can substitute for it in recipes. Drawing on her vast store of pepper lore, she also includes notes and anecdotes about each pepper. Her color photographs illustrate all of the peppers.

In addition to the species descriptions, Andrews offers practical guidance on selecting and storing, roasting and rehydrating, and growing and harvesting peppers. She explains pepper nomenclature, describes the pungency factor, and notes the significance of color, aroma, flavor, and nutrition.