Here to rescue salad from the banality of fast-food outlets & airport restaurants is THE HARROWSMITH SALAD GARDEN. Conceived by longtime gardener Turid Forsyth as a book that would guide the gardener from seed to salad bowl, THE HARROWSMITH SALAD GARDEN does so exquisitely, awakening in most readers appetites they probably never knew they possessed. With co-author Merilyn Simonds Mohr, Forsyth invites us into a world that features butterhead leaves "so tender they melt in your mouth," lettuces that look like "enormous burgundy roses" & exotic greens that become tantalizingly spicy in the hot weather. And that is only the beginning. Frustrated by a limited supermarket selection of produce sprinkled with sucrose, fatty acids or sprayed with gases which give vegetables that "insistent green," Forsyth & Mohr have experimented in their own gardens with hundreds of cultivars, choosing vegetables & greens for flavour, texture & visual appeal when eaten fresh or lightly steamed. Rich with botanical, mythological & nutritional information, THE HARROWSMITH SALAD GARDEN offers chapters on lettuces, on exotic greens, on herbs, on garden vegetables which make salads on their own, those which prefer cool conditions, those which thrive in midsummer & those which mature without light, on salad seasonings, &, finally on salad gardening practices. Throughout, there are recipes for both classic & unusually exquisite salads & dressings. Whether you are searching for the perfect salad tomato, a bewitching mixture of greens, the ideal vinaigrette or a simple escape from the predictability of iceberg lettuce, THE HARROWSMITH SALAD GARDEN will prove to be an unequalled reference tool.