Spanish Books - Page 3

Moro: The Cookbook

Samuel Clark, Samantha Clark

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 7 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Fabulous but not for first-timers 4 out of 5 stars.
8 of 9 people found this review helpful.

This is a fabulous book, with such depth and breadth each time you go back to flip it open something new catches your eye. That said, authenticity is prized over simplicity, and many of the dishes I enjoyed in Spain and wanted to recreate at home are surprisingly time-consuming if not complex to make - potatas bravas and potatas tortilla are 2 examples. However the rice dishes are outstanding and it's a wonderful education in using spices such as saffron and smoked paprika.

This isn't a book for mid-week suppers or beginning cooks looking for everything condensed into a 5 easy steps. But the food it helps you produce is outstanding and its a great couch read.

Editorial Review:

Samuel and Samantha Clark share a passion for the intense flavours of the food of Spain, North Africa and the Eastern Mediterranean. The word “Moro”, meaning “Moor” in Spanish, encapsulates much of their style of cooking -- a heady blend of Arabic and Hispanic dishes that offer warm spices and fiery sauces, slow-cooked earthy stews and delicate flavourings.

Sam and Sam Clark are the chef-owners of Moro, one of London’s most talked-about restaurants. In Moro: The Cookbook, Sam and Sam have distilled the restaurant’s most accomplished and delicious recipes for home cooking. Authenticity is the key and their food remains true to the origins of each dish. Most of these recipes are very simple -- it is the resulting flavours that are wonderfully complex.

The Great Ceviche Book

Douglas Rodriguez, Laura Zimmerman

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 10 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Great flavors, terrible binding, short on recipes 3 out of 5 stars.
5 of 6 people found this review helpful.

For those who are perhaps unfamiliar with the term, `Ceviche' (I've heard it pronounced "seh-vee-chay" and "seh-veech-ee") refers to a delicate method of cooking certain foods (usually seafood) by immersing it in an acidic brine (typically a modestly salted lime juice, but sometimes a mixture a vinegar and various other citrus juices instead) for 1-3 hours. The acid has the same effect on the proteins that heat does, except that there's no heat or caramelization involved. After a set period of time, the acidic brine is then drained off and discarded, and the ceviche is dressed (seasoned) and served in much the same way that a seafood salad is - with diced vegetables and herbs, and a light finishing sauce (typically citrus based).

The `Ceviche' process (which is most popular in central and south america) is related to, but somewhat different from, classic pickling, in that the former uses more acid, and is much less aggressively salted/spiced ... the intention being to serve it almost immediately (within a few short hours), rather than to preserve something for long term storage.

Ok, on to the book itself. I have very mixed feelings about this particular offering:

What I liked:

TOPIC: There's a great paucity of books on this one particular topic, so this book is a very welcome addition to an otherwise grossly overcrowded field.

FLAVORS: I've also (as of this writing) worked with several of the recipes in this book, and so far, the flavors have been impeccable. I'm also fortunate to have eaten (several times) at a restaurant owned and operated by a chef who's worked for/with the author (sample dish: diver scallop ceviche on the half-shell, lightly dressed with blood orange and grapefruit). In fact, it was the chef/proprietor of this restaurant who recommended this book to me. It's always nice to encounter a book in which virtually everything has already been tested and approved by actual use in a successful restaurant, and to see ripples from said book (and restaurant) slowly spread outward into the larger culinary community. As I write this, Sushi is all the rage here in (semi)urban America, and I can easily see ceviche following hot on it's heels.

INTRO: The author has a decent introductory chapter that overviews both the method of cooking, as well as some of the regional variations in style (Ecuadorian, Peruvian, etc.). I wish that more authors were as diligent.

GLOSSARY: The author includes a helpful glossary of terms and ingredients. I wish more authors would do that.

TECHNIQUES: Chapter 4 (unintuitively titled "basics") provides some helpful preparation instructions on how do things like cook octopus, blanch shellfish, open oysters, etc.

HEAD NOTES: Many of the recipes contain interesting head notes about what inspired the dish or where it came from. That's something else that I wish more authors would do.


What I disliked:

AWKWARD FORMAT: The edition I have is a 4" wide by 10" long by ½" thick soft-cover "chap-book" binding, on stiff paper, with a glued-binding. It's designed to be visually appealing on a bookstore shelf, but I cannot emphasize enough what an annoying format it is. It's awful. It's too stiff to open comfortably, you can't lay it flat on a table and work from it, and you actually have to exert hand strength just to hold it open - almost like the book doesn't want you to read it. Think hard-shell clam, struggling to close on your fingers, after having been caught gaping. The space-wasting format also causes even short recipes to spill across 2 full pages ... sometimes even 3-4, if there's a photo involved.

NOT ENOUGH RECIPES: The author, on page 6, claims this book includes 60 ceviches. The back cover mentions "50 of his favorite recipes". Both numbers are WRONG. I counted - there are only 35 ceviche recipes in this book. All of the other recipes hinted at on the back cover, and in the introduction, involve recipes for things like interim procedural ingredients (ex: poaching liquids, flavored oils, etc), condiments, and accompaniments. Surely this book is a candidate for Consumer Report's infamous "black hole" award ... a book 162 pages, with a over price of $18 US, but only 35 recipes of the style implied on the cover. I'll overlook the fact that some of those 35 recipes involved shellfish & bivalves cooked by heat, rather than acid, and thus could be considered "seafood salads" rather than true ceviches (ex: "Indian Mussels", "Peruvian Black Ceviche", "Honduran Fire and Ice Lobster", "Peruvian Tuna Causa", etc.) ... but that's splitting hairs.

INTRO: In my opinion, the author did not provide adequate coverage of explaining the why behind why certain types of seafood should be cooked (or handled with greater care), rather than eaten raw. There's also insufficient attention to sanitation issues (how to sanitize cutting boards to cut down on bacteria, dangers of cross-contamination, etc.), as well as concerns involving resistant parasites (nematodes, worms, etc.) ... how to spot/minimize/avoid them, techniques that can kill them, etc. A book that champions such a delicate cooking technique, and revolving around RAW flesh for it's subject matter, should show a bit more responsibility to the topic and aggressively deal with such matters head-on, rather than lazily tucking tail and short-sheeting the matter.

PROCEDURAL TIPS: Chapter 4 could have been MUCH longer and more robust. I would have like to see more information (and pictures) on things like assessing fish quality; cleaning and butchering fish (esp. ones you've caught yourself); more advice on timing (such as how long the various recipes will maintain peak flavor/texture, once assembled); a fuller discussion of bivalves (size grading, point of origin labeling protections, types of knives used to open them and pictures of how to do it, etc.); a general discussion of tools (fillet knives, scalers, slicing knives, etc.) and also more supplemental information on how to make use of throw-away items (like shrimp shells, fish heads & frames, fish skins, fish innards, etc) to make things like fish stock & soups, bone cracklings, skin cracklings, etc. All of those things are a natural byproduct of making ceviche, and the book is so criminally short that there's little no reason why they chose to be so stingy with such material.

NO RECIPE INDEX / DISCERNABLE ORDER: A book this short should have a convenient recipe index ... either right up front, or at the start of each of the 4 chapters. No dice here. If you want one, you'll have to type it yourself, fold it up, and stuff it in. To compound matters, the recipes do not appear to be in any discernable order within in their respective chapters ... alphabetical or otherwise. They seem to be a random jumble.

PHOTOS: There's a shortage of photos of finished dishes, and a gaping void of helpful procedural photos. The photos that ARE present are far too big (taking up an entire page, and sometimes 2 pages), too few, and are often so myopically close that it's hard to tell what it's supposed to be. [Note to would-be food photographers - if the far side of the plate is out of focus, and the foreground is so close that it causes claustrophobia on the part of the reader, you're zoomed in too much. Please consider an alternate career in pornography.] There are also irrelevant photos present that have nothing whatsoever to do with making ceviche ... such as the picture of beer opposite page 1, popcorn on page 120, several pictures of the author and his friends/staff, etc. Oh, and as long as we're on the topic of popcorn, the author's recipe (p.121) is a bit weak ... the amount of oil required should be 1/3 cup, not 2 tbsp (popcorn follows a classic 2:1 ratio of kernels to oil), and the author neglects to include a 60 second rest off the heat, after the 1st kernel pops, before putting it back on the heat to finish popping (which greatly increases the yield and reduces scorching).

IMPRECISION: I was pleased to see the author include a brief discussion of gourmet salts in his introduction. However, in standardizing to the generic (and vague) term "salt" in all his recipes, he neglects to mention that the two most common salts in culinary use (i.e., plain table salt and coarse kosher salt) cannot be substituted on a 1:1 basis of for each other. I find that to be a glaring omission that could lead to irregular levels of salt, from one reader to the next, depending on which salt is the default usage for their household. For those who are curious, 1 tbsp regular table salt is roughly equivalent to 1.5 tbsp of coarse kosher salt, with a slight upward or downward variation on that depending on just how coarse the kosher salt really is ... it varies. As you can see, a 50% salt difference is NOT negligible - esp. in a book dealing with raw fish. I'm also not keen on recipes that use imprecise terms like "one bunch of thyme" (p.136) and don't bother to give better guidance how big a `bunch' is, or if it's fresh or dried. For the most part, the author does a decent job of precision throughout his book, but he definitely drops the ball when it comes to salt and herbs. It's one of my recurring pet peeves with many cookbook authors.

FOCUS: I think the author would have served the subject, and the reader, better if he'd focused on presenting the material from a practical home-cook standpoint (which is where the cuisine originated to begin with), rather than faithfully parroting the elaborate recipes he prepares at his restaurant. As is, many of the recipes in this book are highly impractical restaurant-only offerings, and are thus useless to most readers, even those who are fairly serious about the hobby. For instance, the "Honduran Fire and Ice Lobster" (p.81) calls for ¼ cup of lobster stock {p.136}. Speaking from personal experience, very few home cooks, even those who cook lobsters, go to the trouble of making classic lobster stock ... much less do it just to get ¼ cup to make ceviche with {and by the way, only restaurants will squander a full cup of butter just to sweat mirepoix for making stocks in general ... home cooks uniformly use oil}. I repeat - it's a restaurant-only recipe. Ditto for the "Sea Urchin Shots" (p.56) ... it's a restaurant-only recipe. Someone like Thomas Keller can get away with that sort of thing (primarily because he's famous and his books are as much about the philosophical quest for perfection as they are about documenting what he does at his iconic restaurant) ... this author cannot. Sorry. For a book pushing the $20 mark that only has 35 ceviches, I expect recipes that are practical and make-able.

RESPONSIBLE CONSUMPTION: Several of the recipes in this book call for varieties of seafood that are either already endangered (Chilean Sea Bass), or well on their way to getting there due to overfishing (Sea Urchin, Red Snapper, etc.). I think boosting the popularity of such products still further is a bit irresponsible. I was pleased that the author mentioned the overfishing of conch, but he could have gone quite a bit further in extolling farm-raised alternatives for more of his ingredients.


Bottom line: This is one of those books in which I love many of the recipes, but for which the book as a whole gets a negative review. I wish I could give it the thumbs up, but it's long laundry list of annoying shortcomings and omissions drag that back down into the below average zone. My advice is to hold off on buying this one and hope the author eventually decides to republish a greatly expanded and reformatted edition. If, however, you love ceviche, and if you're physically holding the book in your hand there in the bookstore, go grab a cup of coffee, then spend 20 mins reading the intro to overview the basic technique (i.e., ½ cup lime juice & a heaping spoon of salt, stir, use to marinate 1-1.5 lbs of sliced/diced fish for 1 hour, drain, and then dress and combine all the rest of the ingredients like you would a fancy seafood salad ... that's pretty much the gist of it), then skim a few recipes to get a general idea of flavors, and then put it back on the shelf ... you can find whatever else you need on the internet.

Editorial Review:

Douglas Rodriguez was the first American chef to give ceviche the attention it deserves, creating such signature dishes as spicy shrimp ceviche with popcorn and the decadent squid ceviche in black ink sauce. His New York restaurant, Chicama, is a temple to the bright, clean flavours of this remarkably simple dish, and patrons crowd around the ceviche bar to marvel at the day's offerings. In this book, Rodriguez presents over 50 traditional and contemporary recipes, as well as extensive information on ingredient basics, food safety issues, and suggestions for pairing ceviche with other dishes.

Italian Intermezzo (Menus and Music) (O'Connor, Sharon, Menus and Music, V. 15.)

Sharon O'Connor

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

The best Italian dinners are made at home. This title puts a cookbook with recipes from a variety of chefs together with a music CD of songs that capture the soul of Italy, masterpiece paintings from the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries, poetry, and colourful food photography. The author travelled throughout Italy and the United States to visit 21 chefs. She has formatted 120 of their recipes for the home cook, including dishes for each course of a traditional Italian meal, from antipasti to dolci, including baked ricotta cheese; pappardelle with shrimp, tomatoes, and basil; and espresso gelato. On the accompanying CD, the Pizzarelli-Peplowski Sextet creates the sound of Italy everyone knows, from Neopolitan songs and opera to pop songs and music from the movies. Recipes come from 21 restaurants in Italy and North America including: Certosa di Maggiano, Siena; Don Alfonso, Sant' Agata; Hotel Cipriani, Venice; Villa San Michele, Florence; Acqerello, San Francisco; San Domenico, New York; Spiaggia, Chicago; and Valentino, Los Angeles. The music includes: "Ah! Maria"; "Mattinata"; "Non Dimenticar"; Santa Lucia"; "O Sole Mio"; and "Torna a Surriento".

The Columbia Restaurant Spanish Cookbook

Adela Hernandez Gonzmart, Ferdie Pacheco

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 10 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Spanish Cooking, Columbia Style! 5 out of 5 stars.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful.

This is such a wonderful cookbook. In South Florida, I visited Columbia and loved the food. I purchased it to try something new. The recipes are authentic with some background narrative woven in there. The language is easy and you can follow the recipe without any problems. Of the recipes I tried, most could be prepared from a well-stocked pantry, not necessarily a huge trip to the grocery store like some cookbooks demand. There are some really great seafood recipes in here too. You'll love the simple Cuban sandwich in here too. I believe this cookbook is well worth the price.

Editorial Review:

Out of secrets and dreams and romance, Adela Hernandez Gonzmart and Ferdie Pacheco re-create their passion for the Columbia in this narrated cookbook inspired by the nation's largest Spanish restaurant and Florida's oldest. Adela's affair with food is a family legacy that began more than 90 years ago, when her beloved grandfather Casimiro emigrated from Cuba to Tampa, then a little town on Florida's west coast. There, amid scrub palmettos and rattlesnakes, an enclave of Cubans, Spaniards, and Italians worked in the growing cigar industry in a neighborhood known as Ybor City. This book is both a history of the elegant family restaurant, which now boasts six locations in Florida, and a cookbook of 178 recipes that make them famous. It is also the biography of Adela, the heart of the Columbia, with commentary by Ferdie Pacheco, television's "fight doctor", Ybor City's famous raconteur, and Adela's neighbor as they grew up together in Ybor City.

The Food of Spain: A Journey for Food Lovers (Food Of Series)

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

The passions of Spain are reflected in its outstanding cuisine.

The Food of Spain brings the culinary traditions of Spanish culture to the North American kitchen. Editor Jane Lawson takes the reader on an intense sensory journey from Madrid's tapas bars and Granada's home kitchens to Barcelona's bustling markets and San Sebastian's firstclass restaurants.

Beautiful location photography captures fresh Mediterranean vegetables, seafood and meats in the country's bustling markets. Instructional illustrations and helpful tips accompany each recipe.

Some of the succulent dishes included are:

• Garlic prawns
• Basque seafood soup
• Lamb caldereta
• Catalan-style cannelloni
• Quails in vine leaves
• Gypsy's arm cake
• Churros and hot chocolate
• Magdalenas.

Featuring a glossary that demystifies unfamiliar ingredients and equipment, The Food of Spain captures this intriguing and varied cuisine for both beginning cook and seasoned chef.

About The Food of... series
A culinary journey around the world.

Each book in The Food of... series is a comprehensive introduction to the world's great cuisine. These books feature more than 100 delicious recipes that highlight each country's culinary treasures. With instructive color photographs throughout, each recipe helps readers choose and identify produce, from vegetables and flavorings to street snacks, sweets, and colorful and exotic fruits. Feature sections explore the essence of each culture's food and cooking techniques.

Catalan Cuisine

Colman Andrews

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Undiscovered cuisine made easy. 5 out of 5 stars.
3 of 6 people found this review helpful.

Great book for learning one of the Mediterranean's best (yet least known) cuisines.

Highly recommended.

Editorial Review:

Revered writer Colman Andrews explores a once undiscovered gem among Europe's great culinary traditions. Using many of the same ingredients that other Mediterranean cuisines are known for, Catalonian cooks combine them in fresh and unexpectedly delicious ways. Try "fricando," braised veal with wild mushrooms; "tumbet," a Majorcan vegetable casserole; or "bunyols," a delectable fried pastry. These and many other tempting dishes along with a wealth of information on the history and lore of the region make this the definitive guide to the food culture of Catalan.

cuba cocina: The Tantalizing World of Cuban Cooking-Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow

Joyce Lafray

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

All of Cuba in a cookbook. 4 out of 5 stars.
18 of 21 people found this review helpful.

Don't let the French sounding name fool you. I've met this author a couple of years ago in Philadelphia and she brings together a fusion of flavors that make the old classic Cuban recipes come to life as well as some new `nuevo' items that will make your taste buds dance a mambo.

Cuban Cocina - the tantalizing world of Cuban cooking - yesterday, today and tomorrow is written by Joyce LaFray and is a deceitful cookbook only because it contains about 250 pages filled with close to 500 recipes. The book begins with a section on the ingredients and techniques that will be used some of which are non-traditional. There is also an English to Spanish shopping list dictionary, although hard to read with the green color, it is fun and educational, let alone helpful.

Some of the many recipes include: Cilantro Mayonnaise; Pickled Chicken, Havana Style; Marinated Fish with Cilantro; Fresh Conch and Lobster Seviche; Crispy Yuca Ham Croquettes; Lime Avocado Dip; Hearty Galician Soup; Yucassoise; Fried White Bean Cake; Cuban Rice; Marinated Garbanzos; Saffron Rice Salad; Baked Red Snapper with Garlic and Cumin; Grilled Swordfish with Mango and Blueberries; Plantain-Coated Fresh Fish; Sofrito Chicken; Oxtail with Peppers and Capers; Ginger Sherried Roasted Pork; Baked Calabaza Squash with Apples and Cheeses; Sweet Potato Pudding; Pineapple-Citrus Chutney; Pepper Corn Muffins; Banana Flan with Coconut Rum Sauce; Coconut Bars with Guava Jelly and a variety of beverages.

The cookbook is well designed, not breaking the cardinal sin - No pages need to be turned to finish a recipe. Some of the ingredients are not readily available at all grocery stores, but should be from any Latin grocery store. For anyone that wish to add some terrific ethnic foods to their repertoire, Cuba Cocina is a great addition to the bookshelf.

Editorial Review:

Traditional classico dishes to exciting nuevo Latin foods, ¡Cuba Cocina! is filled with recipes that incorporate the bold flavors of the Caribbean. You'll recognize favorites like ropa vieja, arroz con pollo, and seviche, and be enticed by the new tastes of dishes like Baby Back Ribs with Guava Sauce, Lobster and Stone Crab Creole, and Fresh Mango Coconut Cake. Don't forget to round out the meal with a tall, icy mojito!

A Drizzle of Honey: The Life and Recipes of Spain's Secret Jews

David M. Gitlitz, Linda Kay Davidson

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 18 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Good Food, Bad History 2 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

I was excited when I first heard about this book, but when I got a copy, I was quite disappointed.

First the good... the recipes produce tasty dishes.

But they are not the recipes of Spain's Jews, secret or public.

These are recipes invented by the authors with a minimum of supporting evidence, or, in fact, most of the time, none at all.

They are based for the most part on the testimony of people who turned in Conversos for being "secrect Jews". The mere mention of, oh, say, chick peas and honey, has led the authors to invent a recipe that includes these ingredients.

If you are truly interested in the history the food eaten by Spain's Jews, you will not learn much. If you want some nice Spainish-style recipes eaten by Jews, you'll probably do better skipping the sad tales of betrayal and torture and buying a modern Sephardic cookbook.

Editorial Review:

When Iberian Jews were converted to Catholicism under duress during the Inquisition, many struggled to retain their Jewish identity in private while projecting Christian conformity in the public sphere. To root out these heretics, the courts of the Inquisition published checklists of koshering practices and "grilled" the servants, neighbors, and even the children of those suspected of practicing their religion at home. From these testimonies and other primary sources, Gitlitz & Davidson have drawn a fascinating, award-winning picture of this precarious sense of Jewish identity and have re-created these recipes, which combine Christian & Islamic traditions in cooking lamb, beef, fish, eggplant, chickpeas, and greens and use seasonings such as saffron, mace, ginger, and cinnamon. The recipes, and the accompanying stories of the people who created them, promise to delight the adventurous palate and give insights into the foundations of modern Sephardic cuisine.

Mayan Cuisine

Daniel Hoyer

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

In his signature style, Daniel Hoyer brings us the authentic recipes of the Maya with Mayan Cooking, along with his personal experiences that make the historical and cultural background of this people accessible and enjoyable. Having been influenced for centuries by the Spanish, other European countries, Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and even the Caribbean, Mayan food is remarkably unique and distinct. Mayan Cooking offers recipes for Sweet Corn and Cilantro Cream Soups, Yucatan BBQ Shrimp, Smoked Pork Loin, Jicama-Orange Salad, and Chicken in Red Chile and Pumpkinseed Sauce, as well as an abundance of recipes for salsas, sauces, spice mixes, and marinades.
Recipes Include:
Bean-Filled Masa Fritters
Baked Chayote Squash Pudding
Mexican Lime Soup
Pit-Roasted Pork with Yucatan Spices
Yucatan BBQ Shrimp
Pumpkinseed Brittle
Author Bio: Daniel Hoyer is an experienced chef, restaurateur, and teacher. Daniel is the author of Culinary Mexico: Authentic Recipes and Traditions and Fiesta on the Grill. He resides in the Rio Grande Valley near Pilar, New Mexico, with his family.
(20080616)

The Latin American Kitchen: A Book of Essential Ingredients with Over 200 Authentic Recipes

Elisabeth Luard

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Fantastic Learning Resource 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

I am an avid cook, but after moving to Costa Rica, I was presented with new ingredients that I didn't know what to do with. Though willing to try my gringo favorites, my Costa Rican boyfriend was used to a different diet and "comfort foods" that I had never even heard of. I wanted to adjust to my new life and environment, and learning to cook traditional Costa Rican & Latin American foods was a key part of the process.

My suegra (boyfriend's mother) gifted me this book for Christmas, after I had fawned and drooled over it at one of my favorite bookstores. It has been an incredible resource for me, detailing each ingredient with incredible detail, explaining how it is used throughout South America.

One of my favorite details is that Laurd tells readers the names of each ingredient in different countries, which if you're familiar with Latin American Spanish, can vary greatly. After each one of her detailed descriptions, Laurd provides two or three typical recipes that include the ingredient, giving new L.A. cooks a good beginning typical foods arsenal.

If you're new to Latin American cooking, I can't recommend this book highly enough. However, keep in mind that it's more of a learning tool than a recipe book.

Editorial Review:

From the award-winning author of The Rich Tradition of European Peasant Cooking, made into a 13-part series for the BBC, comes Elisabeth Luard's collection of authentic Latin American recipes that span Mexico in the north to the southern tip of Argentina. Based on 84 key ingredients, the book includes old favorites and little-known regional specialties. Each recipe showcases a specific ingredient and demonstrates its versatility. Cocoa, for example, flavors sweet Brazilian Brownies and savory Mexican Chicken Mole. Lime adds zest to Guacamole and is the key ingredient of Shrimp Ceviche. 300 vibrant photographs of both the dishes and the locations where they originated create a sense of place and tantalize the palate in this definitive guide to some of the world's most enduring culinary traditions.