fit in, you’ll appreciate the way the book has been organized for easy and ongoing reference. In short, this book is for just about anyone who’s a fan of nature’s most celebrated all-natural food: honey.
Icons Used in This Book
Peppered throughout this book are helpful icons that present special types of information to enhance your reading experience and make you a stellar beekeeper.
Beyond the Book
Much more information is available from your authors, and from the For Dummies brand, for your learning pleasure. “Bee” sure to check out the online Cheat Sheet, which contains handy tools you can use as you fine-tune your honey tasting skills.
To access this Cheat Sheet, simply go to www.dummies.com and enter “Honey For Dummies Cheat Sheet” in the Search box.
Where to Go from Here
You can start anywhere with For Dummies books, but there’s a logic to beginning at the beginning. However, if that’s not in your personality, no problem. Consider starting with Chapter 17 and try one of the refreshing honey-infused cocktail or mocktail recipes. Then, while you’re sipping, move over to Chapter 1 and read some historical information about honey’s role in different cultures over the past 10,000 years. There’s lots of trivia here that’s sure to make you a honey superstar at your next party.
If you are keen on knowing how to professionally taste and evaluate honey, check out Chapter 9 to find out (scientifically) how your tasting apparatus actually works. Then try the tasting exercises to tune up your taste buds. Going on to Chapter 10, you can follow the same step-by-step methodologies used by certified honey sensory experts to taste, evaluate, identify, and describe different honeys’ characteristics and flavors. And now that you are becoming a tasting guru, hop back to Chapter 7. It profiles 50 of the world’s most famous varieties of honey. You can find detailed information, tasting notes, and food pairing suggestions for each of the honeys listed. We promise you’ll appreciate honey as you never have before.
Hungry? Why not jump to Chapters 15 and 16 to savor different honey recipes for cooking and baking. Many of these recipes were provided by renowned executive chefs. Chapter 14 has recipes for making honey wine (mead). Waasail!
Or if you just want to have some yum fun, Chapter 19 is all about how to plan and host a honey tasting party. There are ideas for the invitation, the menu, and how to set up honey games, music, contests, and of course, the main event — honey tasting. Please don’t forget to invite us authors!
Our advice is to not hurry through this book. There’s a ton of information here, and all of it will help you appreciate, better understand, and find new ways to use and enjoy honey. So, whether you just want to discover how to cook with honey or you’re planning to become certified as a honey sensory expert (sommelier), there’s an abundance of sweet stuff here just for you.
And, although this book includes some info about bees and how and why they make honey, if you want to know more about honey bees and the art of beekeeping, check out Beekeeping For Dummies, by Howland Blackiston (Wiley), and Honeybee, Lessons From an Accidental Beekeeper, by C. Marina Marchese (Black Dog & Leventhal).
Part 1
Honey, Give Me the Lowdown
IN THIS PART …
Journey back to the dawn of time and through the ages and discover how honey has been an influential contributor to our culture, spiritual beliefs, folklore, and culinary enjoyment.
Understand how and why honey bees make honey, as well as some other interesting facts about bees.
Gain knowledge about what’s in honey and why it’s considered such a beneficial and healthy food.
Find out how honey is harvested from the bees.
Get acquainted with the four basic styles of honey.
Chapter 1
Dipping into Honey’s History and Its Importance Today
IN THIS CHAPTER
The history of honey predates record keeping. But there are clues and documents that validate the significant role this remarkable and treasured food has played since the early days of life on earth. Honey is a celebrated food that has filled entire books. In this chapter I’ll share some betcha-didn’t-know information about honey’s role throughout history. The information is sure to make you a trivia celebrity at your next party.
Introducing Discoscapa apicula — the World’s Oldest Bee?
It may not be a catchy name, but Discoscapa apicula is the binominal nomenclature, or commonly, the genus and species, of one of the oldest known species of bees. A rare specimen of this bee was preserved in Burmese amber that was found in what is now Myanmar (Southeast Asia). This bee, shown in Figure 1-1, is believed to date from the Cretaceous period, which was about 100 million years ago. To put that timeline in perspective, this bee was buzzing around