THE LATIN AMERICAN KITCHEN
By Elisabeth Luard
Photography by Francine Lawrence
 

 

 This book has a  beautifully written introduction by the author as she refreshes us on food history and tells us how she, not a Latino, began to embrace the Latin cooking.  

It was not Elisabeth Luard’s decision to travel extensively in her youth. However, as the young daughter of a Latin countries diplomat, she found herself in the kitchen helping with the preparations for estate dinners, learning techniques and enjoying the experience. Her dad’s placement in many of the Latin countries exposed her to the subtle, delicious differences in each country’s cuisine. 

Luard  defines some of these differences:  “The nations of the Pacific coast prefer spoon foods—soupy combinations that can be eaten from a bowl; the tortilla-eaters of Mexico and Central America have a preference for scooping foods – salsas, bean purees, meat and vegetable chopped small so they may easily be conveyed to the mouth. The gaucho nations – Argentinians and their neighbors of southern Chile, Uruguayans, Paraguayans and the cowpokes of southern Brazil – are meat eaters and don’t care much if it comes with bread or vegetables. Brazilians and Caribbeans of African origin developed a taste for a variety meats – leaning  toward innards and lungs – pigs’ feet, tripe and all the odds and ends the butcher might otherwise be unable to sell.” 

She defines learning of another culture’s foodways as an, “interweaving of culinary habit that, through the use of unfamiliar ingredients in familiar ways and of familiar ingredients in unfamiliar ways.” Latin America is an edible history lesson.” 

The Latin American Kitchen has an unusual Table of Contents. It pretty well lines out the Latin food system into divisions of:   

Vegetables
(includes a section on exotics -- edible leaves, shoots, roots, thistles and seaweeds)
Chiles
Starches, legumes and grains
Eggs, dairy and cheese.
Poultry and meat
Fish and shellfish
Nuts
The pantry
Fruits

Individual food sections in each category have their own sub-headings: 

Geographical origin
How it grows
Appearance and taste
Buying and storing
Medicinal and other uses
Culinary uses
Recipes using the featured vegetable.
(includes method information) 

Its index lists recipes in bold type and identifying pictures in lighter print.

Some recipes Luard offers:

·        Pico de Gallo, a Mexican dish, combining sweet green oranges in segments, pine nuts and chile flakes tossed with juliened jicama.
·        From Puerto Rico comes Chancletas a dish using cooked chayotes with cream, white cheese, raisins, vanilla, sugar and hard cheese.
·        From Brazil, their famed Acaraje, a mixture of onion, dried shrimp and black-eyed peas  made into small cakes and deep fried in dende oil.
·        From Mexico, Huevos Rancheros, tortillas, eggs, onion, garlic, green chile, tomatoes and grated cheese.
·        From Guatemala, their Seviche de Ostras, made with oysters. Green chiles, scallions and lime juice,
·        The Caribbeans’s LaBelle Josephine using ricotta cheese, cream, strong coffee, rum, grated black chocolate, walnuts and cinnamon.
·        From Mexico Guiso de Chivo con Papaya, a lamb dish with papaya, bitter orange, chili powder, cinnamon, sugar, oil, onions and garlic.

The Latin American Kitchen will be a valued food book in any food book Library.