Jon Rowley's A True Food Hero

While I've yet to see food guru Jon Rowley leap a tall building in a single bound, I have watched the man lead a busload of people on a late night oyster run, where bivalve fans opened oysters they found on the beach at low tide. In his quiet, yet determined way, Rowley knows how to whip food lovers into a frenzy over some of his favorite subjects: salmon, oysters, strawberries and peaches. Julia Child called him a fish missionary. If you've seen him touting Frog Hollow fruit this time of year, he's a peach preacher.

Georgia Pellegrini calls him a hero in her new book. Food Heroes: 16 Culinary Artisans Preserving Tradition recognizes a batch of folks most people whose names aren't familiar: Sue Forrester, aka The Butter Poet, Jean-Benoit Hughes, an olive farmer in Provence and Allan Benton, the country ham maestro from Madisonville, Tenn.

The author (pictured above, with her subject) met Rowley at an oyster shucking event in New York City and while prying open shells, he turned her into an oyster believer. She traveled to the Northwest to watch him work, pulling his refractometer from a pocket to measure the sugar content of tree-ripened fruit and, sometimes, even vegetables. His attention pushes farmers to do better work, to cut back on watering tomatoes so they're sweeter. He has made fragile Shuksan strawberries a sensation and put the Copper River on the map.

He was almost too big for this book, Pellegrini said. The book's mission was to introduce readers to heros flying under the radar. Michael Pollan is not included, nor Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation.

I'm sure glad she included Rowley. He's an invaluable resource and an agitator of the best sort. Farmers might shudder when they see him pull out his refractometer, but his squeaky wheel pushes them in the right direction.

I've learned many lessons from Rowley, who's been a great source over the years. The one lesson I most often put to the test is his sure-fire method for cooking salmon, searing it in my Scanpan and finishing it in a 275-degree oven for 10 minutes. (He goes even lower, setting the temp at 250-degrees, but every oven is different.)

Who's your food hero?