This fall, the publisher’s catalogues included several fascinating
international cookbooks that provide insight into peoples and their culture as
well as information about foodstuffs in other lands and recipes for their
preparation. By far the most glamorous book I’ve considered lately is The
Chinese Gourmet by William Mark (Thunder Bay Press, $39.95, hard), another
in their line of lovely “Gourmet” coffee-table cookbooks that are not unlike
the “Beautiful” series that is also very popular. Though this book is large and
opulently photographed, it should not just be relegated to the coffee table.
The author is a celebrity gourmand and restaurateur in his native Hong Kong and
he has compiled an inviting array of traditional Chinese recipes and a volume
of information about the authentic ingredients needed to prepare them.
Considering my current fascination with Dim Sum, I found that chapter
particularly interesting.
If you found 1993’s Like Water for Chocolate to your liking, you should
love Victor M. and Mary Lau Valle’s Recipe of Memory — Five Generations of
Mexican Cuisine (The New Press, $22, hard). The couple, both journalists,
educators, and food writers, took the treasured contents of an antique family
chest — handwritten recipes, family journals, and old photographs — and
created a culinary history of the female members of Victor Valle’s family.
Through the generations, each woman added her specialities to the cache and her
life experiences to the family history. An intriguing social history
emerges. Recipe of Memory demonstrates how cultural contact, revolution,
class mobility, migration throughout Mexico, and emigration to the U.S. have
affected a cuisine and the people to whom it belongs. A captivating must for
readers interested in the foods of the Americas.
I’ll admit when I fantasize about vacations in France, a canal boat ride
through Gascony would never have occurred to me. Now that I’ve read chef and
adventuress Kate Ratliff’s A Culinary Journey in Gascony — Recipes and
Stories from My French Canal Boat (Ten Speed Press, $16.95, paper), I am
ready to roll. The Canal Lateral a la Garonne winds through the lush
farmland of Southwest France, overlooked by medieval villages with stone
bridges and chapels, filled with small markets, shops, and patisseries to delight all of the senses. The book offers traditional French country
recipes shared by chefs and farm wives along the route, anecdotes, and photos
of trips on the Julia Hoyt, Ratliffe’s 75-year-old Dutch canal boat.
Where do I sign up? –Virginia B. Wood
This article appears in December 22 • 1995 and December 22 • 1995 (Cover).