After thirty years of leading culinary tours throughout Mexico, Marilyn Tausend teams up with Mexican chef and regional cooking authority Ricardo Muñoz Zurita to describe how the cultures of many profoundly different peoples combined to produce the unmistakable flavors of Mexican food. Weaving engrossing personal narrative with a broad selection of recipes, the authors show how the culinary heritage of indigenous groups, Europeans, and Africans coalesced into one of the world’s most celebrated cuisines.
Cooks from a variety of cultures share recipes and stories that provide a glimpse into the preparation of both daily and festive foods. In a Maya village in Yucatán, cochinita de pibil is made with the native peccary instead of pig. In Mexico City, a savory chile poblano is wrapped in puff-pastry. On Oaxaca’s coast, families of African heritage share their way of cooking the local seafood. The book includes a range of recipes, from the delectably familiar to the intriguingly unusual.
Marilyn Tausend is the author of Cocina de la Familia: More than 200 Authentic Recipes from Mexican-American Home Kitchens (winner of the IACP Julia Child Award for the Best American Cookbook of 1998), Mexico the Beautiful, Savoring Mexico, and Mexican. Ricardo Muñoz Zurita is the author of the acclaimed Diccionario Enciclopédico de Gastronomía Mexicana, soon to be published in English, in addition to numerous Mexican cookbooks.
“This is a beautiful and meticulously researched cookbook in which Marilyn Tausend reveals the diversity of Mexican food with simplicity and grace.” –Alice Waters, author of The Art of Simple Food
"Marilyn Tausend's remarkable new cookbook La Cocina Mexicana takes us on an uncharted culinary journey through Mexico’s unexpectedly delicious history. Even veteran chefs and proficient home cooks will come across new recipes—some unfamiliar, all exciting—brought to life in this treasure of a book. Marilyn’s warm and thoughtful style translates effortlessly to all cooks." –Rick Bayless, chef and owner Frontera Grill and host of PBS's Mexico One Plate at a Time
“The kitchen is at the heart of Mexican life, the center of its many families, cultures, histories, and arts. Marilyn Tausend, with her rich experience over many decades of travel throughout Mexico, evokes this heart and life in every dish she names, from fruit gazpacho to fava bean salad to avocado ice cream. This is real food for real people. To read this book is to taste and feel the joys of Mexico in every named ingredient.” –Betty Fussell, author of Raising Steaks: The Life & Times of American Beef and The Story of Corn
“La Cocina Mexicana is Marilyn Tausend’s edible travelogue of years of fearless culinary adventures in Mexico. With every delicious recipe, there is a story of old kitchen friendships from some of Mexico’s most talented cooks. What a joy [to read and cook from this] timely and needed book replete with personal insight, lively storytelling, solid knowledge, and good cooking.” –Maricel E. Presilla, author of The New Taste of Chocolate
336 pp.7 x 9.25Illus: 16 color illustrations, 1 map
9780520261112$39.95|£34.00Hardcover
Oct 2012