PREFACE

I once interviewed Dr. David Katz of Yale University about the paleo diet. He pointed out that hunters in the Paleolithic era often came back empty-handed or with just one or two small animals. So there goes the notion of paleo as a meat-centric approach to meal planning. Even today, scientists have visited remote tribes in the Amazon and found much the same thing about meat consumption—it is a luxury, not a staple.

Instead, the central concept of paleo is returning to an unprocessed, non-agricultural diet, one that depends less on the pantry staples we take for granted—flour, pasta, soy sauce, cornstarch, wine, vegetable oil, rice, potatoes, and commercial broths to name a few—and more on less-processed foods that are free from sugars, stabilizers, and other unwanted additives.

One might then ask, “Why America’s Test Kitchen?” Well, try to make spaghetti and meatballs, fried chicken, blueberry muffins, beef stew, or granola bars without the usual ingredients. This requires heavy-duty kitchen testing to sort out what to use in place of the spaghetti (spiralized zucchini does the trick), the batter for the chicken (arrowroot and almond flours mixed with seltzer), the basic flour mixture for the muffins (almond flour, coconut flour, and arrowroot flour, with a resting time for proper hydration), the store-bought broth in the beef stew (beef bones provide meaty depth), and the oats in the granola bars (nuts and seeds work well, plus maple syrup and processed dates for both texture and sweetness).

After more than a year of kitchen work, we discovered how to use pureed vegetables as a thickener; how to make a great pan sauce without wine or butter; how to replace flour with different non-wheat flours and starches in different combinations depending on the recipe; how to make a stir-fry without most of the usual suspects, including soy sauce, sugar, and Chinese wine; and how to replace milk and cream and still get a creamy final result.

Plus we came up with recipes for a true “paleo pantry,” including chicken and beef broths, mayonnaise, ketchup, barbecue sauce, mustard, and tomato sauce. You also get building block recipes for pie pastry, almond yogurt, sandwich rolls, wraps, “cheese,” and almond milk. And we also found creative ways to use the slow cooker to solve many paleo recipe problems.

Look, I’m not a fad diet person but I do care deeply about what and how I eat. In fact, I often do consume a diet that is mostly paleo—I like fresh, minimally processed foods as a starting point. So the recipes in this book are, for the most part, just common-sense healthy—the type of foods that sensible healthy folks would want to cook for their family and friends.

There is an old Vermont story that reminds me of trying a newfangled diet. Fred Wilcox used to come down from the mountains into town about twice a year. One autumn, he was sideswiped by a tourist driving a car. The visitor, shaken and anxious to help, jumped out and asked if the old-timer was hurt. Fred stood up slowly, looked him in the eye, and said, “Well, it ain’t done me any good!”

Unlike old Fred, we think that this natural approach to food and cooking will do you a lot of good. But, perhaps even better, the food will taste good—very good—along the way. The most important thing is to enjoy the cooking and the food. That’s the best way I know to stay happy and healthy.

CHRISTOPHER KIMBALL

Founder and Editor,

Cook’s Illustrated and Cook’s Country

Host, America’s Test Kitchen and Cook’s Country from America’s Test Kitchen