New York (AP) — Bringing together the distinctive dishes of the whole country is a difficult process for everyone. Next, imagine doing it in 22 countries. That way, you’ll see what went into creating The Latin American Cookbook.
One dish, such as garlic shrimp or grilled street corn, is assembled differently by neighborhood, region, and country.
“Collecting this into one dish and saying,’This is a recipe’ is one of the most difficult things I’ve done in my life,” said Michelin-starred chef Virgilio Martinez. Says. Lima, Peru.
Martinez and his collaborators have created a beautiful and thoroughly researched book containing 600 iconic recipes that provide snapshots of the spirit of Latin American cuisine.
From Chilean salsa verde sea urchins and berries and Mexican black turkey stews to Venezuelan pasta casseroles and Ecuadorian potato pancakes, there are plenty of dazzling dishes. There are several mole sauces, classic pisco sour, Dursederesh Thousand Layer Cake, and a wonderfully named Chilean disco fried recipe.
The book is not organized by country, but by material such as vegetables, corn, pork, lambs and goats, roots and tubers, fish and shellfish. It celebrates regional ingredients such as the edible flower loroco, the bluish fungus Fitracoche, and the immature banana known as Guineos.
Martinez and co-author of this volume, food and travel writer Nicolas Gill consulted with home chefs, farmers, food journalists, village elders, bakeries and restaurant owners throughout Latin America.Martinez took what he learned with him Mater Iniciativa — An interdisciplinary gastronomic and cultural research organization dedicated to the conservation and sharing of Peru’s biodiversity — and applied it throughout Latin America.
“This process was very difficult. The landscape stretches from the Rio Grande to the tip of Patagonia. It’s a vast area of the globe.”
But that often meant delicious fieldwork, from tasting a warm bowl of beef in Bogotá to unloading a plate of fish and acai berries by the Amazon River. “Latin American Cookbook” Phaidon Press’s cuisine is packed with fascinating dishes that extend the culinary vocabulary beyond the most famous dishes on the continent, such as empanadas, arepas, tamales and caipirinha.
Authors often celebrate the variety of ingredients and why one dish differs from sister recipes, highlighting their habits and the story behind them. Most Latin American countries use common ingredients such as corn and beans, but the vastness is difficult to simplify.
“I’m from Peru and I’m very different from Brazilians. So they have something in common. I have more in common with Mexicans than with Germans, right?” Martinez said. “The idea is to not push out one identity because there are too many Latin American identities.”
According to Martinez, Latin Americans tend to improvise in the kitchen. This probably reflects that many regions are experiencing difficult economic conditions, some ingredients are not available and others are too expensive. “Making them improvised and what you can do with what you have is part of Latin American culture,” he says.
The author knows and encourages home chefs to replace some of the hard-to-find ingredients with more common ingredients. What they wanted to do was to codify the most authentic version of the dish.
“We tried to specify the materials as much as possible. We tried not to stunn them,” Gil says. “For example, if there was a special tuber that actually gave it a different taste, someone else in the world would probably not find it, but we tried to name that particular tuber. . “
In addition to his restaurant, Martinez is dedicated to recording Peru’s abundant produce and experimenting with natural gifts to discover cooking uses. In many respects, the new cookbook is also a way to save the past.
“We need to help farmers, help those who produce food, and advertise some ingredients that will probably be forgotten in the next few years,” he says. increase.
Gil hopes the book will also be a guide for post-pandemic people to visit the continent and be bold to try new dishes. “We wanted to inspire travel and make people go to these places and understand them,” he says.
Mark Kennedy http://twitter.com/KennedyTwits
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Cookbooks Celebrate Latin America’s Vast and Lively Cuisine | Lifestyle
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