Where did the idea for the book come from?

[Jeremy]

Dave, where did the idea of creating a food substitution cookbook come from? How did you decide what items to include and how long did it take to put together?

[David Joachim]

A publisher and I sat down at a culinary conference and discussed the idea for the book. It was his general concept to do a substitution reference book. Then I set about organizing it and deciding what should be included. He like the title The Food Substitutions Bible, so I felt compelled to make is as comprehensive as possible. There are more than 1,500 entries and 5,000 substitutions. But we still had to cut 300 pages from the manuscript to fit it all in to 620 pages. I have plenty of material for a second edition should we ever decide to do one. See the "Organization" thread for more details on how I wrote the book (it took about 3 years).