Marissa Baggett’s cookbook on sushi would be excellent except for a poor index. Nevertheless Vegetarian Sushi Secrets, a trade paperback, is still a very good cookbook with a usable Contents section for searching. In her introduction, Baggett gives us all we need to know about sushi, including the various types, a long list of ingredients Japanese sushi chefs may use, and the equipment we need. The large number of recipes she presents include far more than sushi: soups, appetizers, salads, pickles, even a few desserts, all a la Japanese cuisine. You do need a good source for Japanese ingredients for these recipes. The recipes are well written and the instructions easy to follow, but making sushi is not for the beginner cook. The recipe layouts are good, all on single pages. The recipe head notes are informative. The photo illustrations are excellent, and Baggett includes many thumbnail series photos as a teaching aid (making vegetable gyoza; how to make thin sushi rolls). We learn that there are seven different types of sushi, many more than we commonly encounter at the average sushi restaurant. The index is not very good, not a cross-reference, and you would have a hard time finding there what you are searching for.
