Diana Kennedy Cookbooks

[shelora]

Such a good question.

I have all of DK's books but the one I use the most is the now practically falling apart, The Art of. That woman is a goddess.

Next in line is her book, My Mexico. The mole de iguana recipe is KILLER, subsitituing pork for the iguan of course!

Ricky B's books I return to again and again for certain recipes - the older books especially, The Mexican Kitchen in particular.

A few others I treasure are Tequila, Cooking with the Spirit of Mexico, by Lucinda Hutson. Great party ideas and recipes using that wonderful elixir.

And the new Williams Sonoma mini book, Mexican (recipes by Marilyn Tausend) has a great cross section of recipes - the ceviche using salmon and scallops is exquisite. I tested many of the recipes for Marilyn. I can guarantee that they work no matter what.

Thanks everyone for all the inspiring words. This forum always makes my day.

Hasta pronto,

Shelora

[sladeums]

The only DK book that I do not have is My Mexico (that's more or less the title).  I will wind up getting it at some point.

Yes, I meant Essentials and the other one with the yellow cover - cannot think of the proper title, and am not near my bks at the mo'.

Theabroma

If you enjoyed Nothing Fancy for it's stories and other non-recipe, yet food-related material you'd love My Mexico.

It reads as a travelogue through various parts of Mexico - each chapter focuses on a specific geograpic area, discusses the people she got recipes and techniques from and then ends with a recipe relevant to the text.

It's my personal favorite of hers - and even though the book has fewer recipes than some of her other titles, her recipes I do use the most are from this book.

[ludja]

Can anyone weigh in on buying compilation, Essential Cusine of Mexico versus the three original books (Cuisine of Mexico, Tortilla Book & Mexican Regional Cooking) separately?

Are all the original recipes there in the compilation? Are the recipes "updated" and if so, are they updated in a good way? (i.e. still traditional, or perhaps even more so given better access to ingredients now)

I may not be able to get all the books out of the library and compare myself so wondered if anyone else had the opportunity

Thanks in advance.

[ExtraMSG]

They are updated. eg, I think a lot of the dishes have been made leaner or at least have leaner options. I'm sure many of the other updates have more to do with necessities. There are also a decent number of new recipes.

[LarsTheo]

I recently bought The Essential Cuisines of Mexico, and I was a bit disappointed in it, possibly because the recipes were already familiar to me, and I've already revised them to my own preference. I did get another book Cocina tradicional mexicana by Blanca Nieto that I like a lot better, even if it is smaller. All of the measurements (when they are given, instead of "al gusto") are metric, and so I will have to acquire more metric measuring utensils, I think. I've also ordered Complete Book of Mexican Cooking by Elisabeth Lam Ortiz and Recetas de todo Mexico by Angeles De La Rosa. I can't remember whether you said you wanted the book to be in English.

There are many interpretations of Mexican cooking, and some are more appealing to me than others. I'm not a fan of Rick Bayless either, although I like what I've seen of his recipes better than DK's, despite her reputation. I wish I had bought the DK book with the color pictures, as the one I got has no pictures at all, which is less inspiring. I think it took DK a while to get to Yucatan, which is my favorite part of Mexico for food, and she seems to have concentrated a lot on moles, especially from Oaxaca and Puebla, which are the least palatable to me, but that's just my own preference. I probably would have been better off with a regional Yucatecan cookbook. I live close to several very good Oaxacan restaurants (Los Angeles has a huge Oaxacan ex-patriot population, and everyone I met in Oaxaca knew someone in L.A.), and so I'm less likely to make Oaxacan food myself. I developed my own recipe for Yucatecan style enchiladas, based on my memory of flavors, and so I would like to check out others have done this.

[ludja]

I developed my own recipe for Yucatecan style enchiladas, based on my memory of flavors, and so I would like to check out others have done this.

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Thanks for adding your detailed comments re: Kennedy's books to the thread.

Sounds like your efforts on Yucatecan style enchiladas would be a great kick off to a new thread! (I'm intrigued to hear more about them... )