skchai

In my opinion the best English-language Brazilian Cookbook is Margarette De Andrade's Brazilian Cookery: Traditional and Modern (Charles Tuttle, 1965), now long since out of print. Harris's book is also very good and, as usual for her, well-researched. If you're looking for pictoral / travelogue books, you could try Cafe Brazil by Michael Batemen (food editor for Independent on Sunday) or the coffee-table sized Brazil: A Cook's Tour by Christopher Idone (author of the equally coffee table-sized Glorious American Food). Alternatively, you could go with classic South / Latin American cookbooks such as The Book of Latin American Cooking by Elisabeth Lambert Ortiz and (as mentioned by Kristin) The Art of South American Cooking by the late Felipe Rojas-Lombardi. Both contain a substantial number of Brazilian recipes.

Just to elaborate on Jinmyo's excellent classification. Roughly speaking, the divisions of Korean cooking techniques are as follows (with qualifications in parentheses): boiled dishes: tchigae -> stew (though not slow-cooked like many Western stews) jeongol -> one-dish hotpot (like Japanese nabe more or less) kuk -> clear soup tang -> thicker soup (though there are a number of exceptions to this kuk/tang dichotomy) tchim -> braised or steamed dishes twigim -> deep-fried dishes bokkeum -> stir-fried dishes gui -> grilled dishes I'm sure there are others I forgot as well . . .

Kristin, Thanks for the link! Their faq (kind of) answers the mystery about why the shows always seem to take a lot more than three minutes. Apparently when the show originally aired the on-air time was 3 minutes but after the move to color broadcasting in 1966 it was extended to seven minutes, but they wanted to keep the brand name. Or something like that. Looks like Yamamoto has been replaced by generic-seeming "ana" (including a man)!

Thanks, Suvir. I've been out of town for a few weeks and just got back. Had a good time catching up on recent posts. I actually have never made Dhansak yet - the sheer number of ingredients is somewhat daunting. There do seem to be simplified recipes out there but to me somehow that misses the point - isn't the whole reason for making Dhansak experience the complex ritual of preparation and consumption, not to mention the two-hour nap that follows after eating so much!

They could use old recipes from another show, 3-pun Cooking (though the recipes always seem to take more like 10-15 minutes). This show has got to have set some longevity record for cooking shows, since I believe it started airing in the 1963. Has anybody watched 3-pun Cooking recently. If so, is Yamamoto Sonoko still around?

There are quite a few Parsi recipes in Cafe Spice Namaste by Cyrus Todiwala (who is himself Parsi). It is published in the U.S. and Britain. You may also search websites for Bhicoo Manekshaw's Essential Parsi Cookbook, which is put out by Penguin India. Monica, I'm glad your cookbook has a lot of Parsi stuff in it - all the more reason to go out and get it! In answer to some of your questions - I'm no expert but . . . Parsi cuisine would probably be viewed as on the complex side of the spectrum. This is part because of the disproportionate percentage of Parsis who attained middle and upper-class status under the British Raj, and who could presumably afford to indulge in complex cookery, but also because of the wide variety of influences - Persian, Gujarati, Anglo-Indian, what a mixture! Distinctive characteristics of the cuisine include sweet and sour flavors, which presumably was brought over from Iran (or was it learned from the Gujaratis?), as well the ubiquity of eggs in numerous guises. The most famous Parsi dish is undoubtably Dhansak, a curry made from mutton or chicken, several different kinds of lentils, and numerous vegetables. It is served with caramel-infused rice and fried minced meat kebabs.

I want to second the thanks to Vikram for his informative post. You sure know a lot! You make an interesting point about cooked leafy greens - there are probably a lot more in regular use in Indian cookery than in most Western countries. In my question, however, I was specifically referring the use of stems and leaves for flavoring and/or aromatic purposes, and not as the bulk ingredient of a dish (e.g. saag). While it is true that most Western herbs are non-local, this raises the question of why more have not been indigenized over the years given Indian cookery's great sensitivity to varieties of flavor and aroma. Rosemary and sage thrive in most warm climates, and presumably would grow quite well throughout much of India. As has been mentioned, basil (tulsi) is indeed already widely grown, but it is not commonly used as an herb. Nor can it be said that the use of herbs is confined to Western cookery, as a large number are used in various Southeast Asian cuisines. Lemon grass, basil, mint, cilantro, and curry leaves, naturally, but also lime leaves, pandanus, polygonum, turmeric leaf, etc. They form the basis for many of the wet spice pastes (rempah, bumbu, krung) that are at the heart of many dishes. This is why I was puzzled. . .

How about Nagasaki sara-udon? Not really udon; another quasi-Chinese dish. Deep-fried, as all things should be.

Kennedy is considered to be one of Mexico's foremost culinary authorities, regardless of country of origin. In 2001, the Mexican National Council for Culture and the Arts awarded prizes to the three culinary figures who had done the most to promote and preserve Mexican cookery. The awardess were: the late Guadalupe Perez San Vicente (pioneer in the study of food history), Diana Kennedy and Patricia Quintana. In 2002, there was a second round of awards, to Alicia Bernard, Chepina Peralta, Susanna Palazuelos (author of Mexico the Beautiful Cookbook), and Yuriria Iturriaga. Quintana also has a number of cookbooks out in English, including the coffee-table Taste of Mexico and Mexico's Feasts of Life, both lushly photographed and well-written but unfortunately out of print.

Also won 2003 IACP award for International Cookbooks. Unfortunately haven't had a chance to take a look at it (nor, it seems, have many others on this forum), but liked her earlier Chillies to Chutneys quite a lot. Engaging writing style, non-threatening recipes.

Rachel aka Caroline, I just had to ask: are you now working on a book on Mexican Cookery? How long have you been in Mexico? I loved Food of Paradise, and in your absence it has become the definitive work on Hawai`i local cuisine, besides winning the IACP award. I've been waiting with bated breath (figuratively) to see what you come up with next. I think I arrived at UH just when you left. We miss you here!

Revisiting this thread: One thing I've always wondered is why there are so few Japanese cookbooks, relative to the popularity of the cuisine, in English. I only know of three books that attempt a fairly comprehensive survey of everyday cuisine, at least among those widely available in the U.S.: the late Shizuo Tsuji's Japanese Cooking: A Simple Art, Elizabeth Andoh's At Home with Japanese Cooking, and the new book by Hiroko Shimbo (I forget the title). You would expect a lot more than that. Andoh is the most prolific of them, with three cookbooks to her name, all excellent, all I believe unfortunately out of print. If you think about all the Italian, Chinese, Mexican, Indian, Thai, etc. cookbooks out there, the shortage is startling, given that there are probably as more Japanese restaurants in the United States as Indian or Thai. While there are very few Korean cookbooks out there, Korean cooking is of yet not nearly as popular as Japanese in the English-speaking world, particularly when you get outside of the major cities. I've heard it suggested that Japanese cooking is too difficult to make at home, but I don't know why this should be the case. Even the titles of Tsuji and Andoh's books seem to reflect the notion that they have to overcome some kind of mental block that Westerners have about cooking Japanese at home. To the community: what experiences do you have with Japanese cookbooks, and do you feel that Japanese home cookery is more or less difficult than that of some of the other cuisines I've mentioned above.

Pink garlic? I've never seen this- can you describe it more? I have to agree that sometimes food can be over coloured here. Beni-shouga is such a weird colour! But I have to admit, when sprinkled on yaki-soba, which is usually all brown, it looks really nice. Sorry - I can't give you any more details because I was so frightened I dropped the bag and didn't look any further! However, I can honestly say that I remember seeing it at the tsukemono section of both our local Daiei and Shirokiya (the last remaining branch of the oldest department store chain in Japan, now owned by Tokyu, is somehow in Honolulu, but that's another story). And, no, I do not believe I was hallucinating at the time. As you are, I'm less upset by beni shouga. Bright red is at least more food-like than pink! Also it "fits" the hot (?) taste of the ginger.

One thing I always wondered about is the amount of coloring agents used in oshinko (a lot more so, seemingly, than in other tsukemono). What's the deal? Does anybody really find yellow daikon or pink garlic so enticing? Red shiso actually adds flavor to pickles, but that seems to be the exception. As both smallworld and torakris mentioned, takuan is sometimes used synonymously with oshinko. Before the days of turmeric, takuan was pickled in nuka (rice bran), and thereby acquired a light-brownish color, so the turmeric might be a way of mimicing that in modern, brine-pickled takuan. However, then why not use caramel coloring or something more realistic? Or am I missing the point?

Whew! Don't have an immediate comments/questions, but just wanted to thank Russ, Steven, Paula, and everyone else for their detailed, informative and generous responses to my original inquiry (on another thread). It's just another example of the magic (!?) of egullet.

An inrelevant point: the Foods of the World series remained in print long after it originally came out, and some of the later printings, while not exactly new editions, contain slight updates on people and places. Mostly they're about people who died in the interim, like Euell Gibbons (Eastern Heartland) and that daring Alaskan pilot (Great West).

Thanks, Suvir and Prasad, for your help! One herb I forgot - mint!

Thanks for the clarification. . . Now I can tell my grandchildren (when I have some) about the time I was corrected by Russ Parsons! I was wondering if you could share with us at some point, either in this thread or a new one, your experiences / advice on coming up with recipes and other food-related material under deadline pressure. Are your recipes thought up while you are writing the column, or taken from ones that you already have? How does testing take place? For lurkers, here are some examples of Russ's writings from the LA Times (registration required). Thanks!

A couple of years ago it was found that artificially manufactured soy sauces based on hydrolyzed soy protein often contain dangerously high levels of a powerful carcinogen called 3-MPCD. Hence such soy sauces, as well as some oyster sauces, have been pulled off the shelves in a number of countries. Apparently the carcinogens are formed when soy protein is dissolved in a powerful acid solution to mimic the fermentation process. This danger is not present in naturally fermented products. I'm not a chemist, so I can't give any more details, but here are links to a good BBC News story. If you want to learn even more, here's a comprehensive set of links to articles about the subject (many from New Zealand).

I have a related, perhaps off-topic, question. Besides cilantro, curry leaves, and methi (which seems anyway to be used more as a vegetable), which other herbs are commonly used in Indian cookery? I realize that the definition of herb may be somewhat vague, but I am referring here to the use of leaves and/or stems of plants for flavoring or aromatic purposes. Also, why, despite the huge number of spices in wide usage in both North and South, are herbs not widely used as well? Is their some justification from Ayurvedic teachings?

Olney did in fact sue the author in question, the once-famous Richard Nelson, in the mid-1980s and, I believe, won, setting a legal precedent of sorts. The strange part was that Nelson (if my memory is not too foggy) passed off the French recipe as an example of American Regional Cuisine, something that Nelson did much to popularize. Actually, I found an excellent discussion of the case in the site of Daniel Rogov, the food critic for Ha`aretz. Was tempted to plagarize it (har har) but instead will provide a link (look about 3/4 way down the page). I wonder if Fat Guy can lend us his legal expertise pro bono to provide some more info on this.

Not necessarily. I suppose I could have added more detail to my comments for indeed, it is still possible to find "real yogurt." It is usually sold by street vendors and in small shop stalls and is packaged in small glass carafes or ceramic jars, both of which are meant to be recycled (typically they have paper or plastic wrap covering the mouths of the containers). People usually hang around eating/drinking and hand the containers back when they are finished. I think even these have a touch of sweetness to them, but much more of a tangy flavor not nearly so sweet as the mass-produced "yogurt drinks." Don't have direct knowledge of the cause (so why am I saying anything?), but I would suspect that the sweet yoghurt drinks that have appeared in recent years are due, at least indirectly, to the malign influence of theYakult Company, which popularized this pseudo-health drink in Japan and has spread it throughout the world. Apparently they are even popular in Mexico. Of course we buy it all the time because our kids love it.

Japan's greatest technological achievement ever - the otoshi buta (this is a wooden lid that fits into a pot or saucepan and pushes the food into the cooking liquid). Truly (perhaps) main reason for pasty flour-thickened sauces in the West is excessive liquid due to the inability to pack raw ingredients! Have you seen recipes that call for inserting a small plate into the pot and weighing it down with pebbles? How primitive!

Thanks, Kristen! I believe you're correct about the origin of the term.

I really do have a bone to pick about East Asian sweets. I think the potential exists in terms of a resource base of techniques and ingredients, but the prevailing aesthetic values tend to put appearance over substance. Hence I have to agree with Wimpy regarding what exists in practice today. I seem to recall reading (sorry, I don't remember the exact citation) that "high class" producers such as Toraya or Minamoto Kitchoan (the most widely distributed ones internationally) seem to put more sugar into their wagashi than is contained the ordinary supermarket product. The same overreliance on sugar also seems to be true (from admittedly unrepresentative experience) for Korean and Chinese sweets as well (other than plain ricecakes). Snobbery aside, this seems to me extremely wrong-headed. The best and most unique indigenous East Asian sweet flavorings such as citron, mugwort, cherry blossom leaves, etc. have fairly mild flavors that are overpowered by large amounts of sugar. The same goes for perfumed ingredients adopted from Chinese medicine such as omija ("five flavored berry" Korean reading), boxthorn, and of course ginseng. The main components of East Asian sweets, such as glutinous rice and various bean pastes, also have a fairly mild flavor in comparison to butter, eggs. chocolate, etc. So, if anything, East Asian sweets ought to contain substantially less sugar than Western sweets. I would love it if someone would launch a line of "nouveau" wagishi that are less sweet and take advantage of local ingredients in a more sensitive fashion.