Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month: Cookbooks & Food

This is Charles Perry's new translation of an ancient classic cookbook, which was well known as the only medieval book in English on Arab cookery.

At the Culinary Historians of Southern California meeting, January 11, 2014, Charles Perry presented "A Feast for the Nose:  Perfuming the Banquet in Old Damascus." 

 

Food historian, journalist, and co-founder of the Culinary Historians of Southern California, Charles Perry presents a history of the foods, the cooking utensils, and insights about the influence of  politics on the cuisine of Uzbekistan. This is a recording of the lecture presented by Charles Perry at the Culinary Historians of Southern California meeting, January 12, 2013.

Charles Perry discusses literature, food and history. This is a recording of a lecture presented by him at the Culinary Historians of Southern California meeting, January 14, 2012.

There is ever so much more to Vietnamese cooking than banh mi and pho. This book is regarded as the best on the very distinctive cuisine of Vietnam.

Another wonderful book from Ottolenghi, who brought us Plenty : vibrant vegetable recipes from London's Ottolenghi, and an LAPL  2012 Best Non-Fiction pick, Jerusalem : a cookbook. He and his staff surpass themselves with more tasty vegetarian dishes with different and unusual flavors.

 

Angeleno and rising star in the L.A. culinary landscape, Roy Choi chronicles--with charisma and sincerity--the story of his life and the Los Angeles food scene. From Korean taco inventor with his Kogi truck, to Chego to community-based inititiatives in the inner city, Choi is much more than a celebrity chef. Includes 85 recipes.

This is a gorgeous cookbook, not only for the color photographs and recipes, but because it pays homage to the diversity, history, and glory of a city that has endured over the centuries. Ottolenghi and Tamimi present us with the complex history of this ancient city through the historical origins of different types of foods and recipes. As in his previous books, Plenty: Vibrant Vegetable Recipes from London's Ottolenghi and Ottolenghi: The Cookbook, Yotam Ottolenghi keeps bringing us recipes for exceptionally good food.

A beautiful book with vibrant photographs of prepared foods and scenes in Lebanon. Main dishes include meat, poultry and fish, but the delectable array of vegetable dishes could convert any omnivore to a vegan. At the end of this comprehensive book is a selection of recipes from notable chefs and food writers

Chinese cooking has specific techniques which are very exacting. However, the recipes in this book make it possible for everyone to prepare some of the well-known dishes without being a master cook.  The recipes are easy to do!

Soon Young Chung provides practical tips and methods so that everyone can prepare healthy, tasty Korean recipes. There are color photographs on every page, and a brief history of the cuisine and methods of preparation.  

This is the comprehensive guide to all aspects of Japanese cooking: history; simple and complex recipes; techniques (slicing, grilling, steaming, simmering, frying, and more); specifics on rice, noodles and sushi; detailed drawings. The twenty-fifth anniversary edition has a wonderful appreciation from Ruth Reichl who had asked M.F.K. Fisher for advice about visiting Japan. Fisher recommended this book, however Reichl was not going to be cooking.  "No," she [M.F.K. Fisher] said in her sphinx-like way, "It is much more than a cookbook."

Korean-American Edward Lee raises the bar on great fusion food. His Korean grandmother cooked every day in a very tiny windowless kitchen in Brooklyn. Her traditional foods became a lodestone for Lee's new location in Louisville, Kentucky where he found many parallels in cooking:  a love of pickling, BBQ, jerky, and always, always loads of complex flavors. Edward Lee has given us a lovely book to read, with stories, information and recipes. Full-page color photographs amplify the mouthwatering recipes.

A grand cookbook with detailed information about ingredients and techniques; a concise history of Korea and its regions, festivals and celebrations, eating traditions and etiquette, street food and snacks.  There are double-spread color photographs throughout with smaller photos of preparation methods.

Accomplished actress and cookbook writer Madhur Jaffrey evokes the world of her early childhood as the fortunate child of a very old Hindu famly.

Fortune cookies are only part of the story here. Lee takes readers on a journey through the history of Chinese food with a particular emphasis on the dishes that Americans are most familiar with. You'll learn the rise of the Chinese takeout restaurant, go inside the soy sauce wars, and uncover the surprising truth about General Tso's chicken.

There is a legend that when Alexander of Macedon, in his conquest of the world, laid siege to an Armenian fortress, on the fourth day a white sheet of lavash was hung on the fortress wall. The Macedonian solders shouted, “The Armenians are giving up. They hang the white flag!” Alexander said, “It is bread, not a white flag. It seems to me that they want peace. They send us a message that we are here on earth to eat and live, not to fight.” And Alexander continued his journey. Filled with rich cultural references, folklore, humor, and recipes, this book is a culinary journey of Armenia that will delight anyone, who at one time or another has been interested in culinary traditions of one of the world's most ancient cultures.

What country or place is the origin of the noodle, aka pasta, and to which should credit be given--China or Italy, or does it matter?  Jen Lin-Liu travels from east to west, starting in western China, moving through central Asia, Iran, Turkey, Greece and Italy, and retraces selected parts of the Silk Route whose travelers became the great disseminators of products and ideas.  She eats good food along the way, learns new cooking techniques, however as for the answer to the noodle's origin,  she concludes that because of the travel and trade on the Silk Route, "The answer was lost in the steppes of Central Asia, the deserts of Iran, and the mountains and valleys of Asia Minor." 

A large format cookbook which combines secular and religious history, with the customs and recipes of, what was, the Aleppian Jewish community in Syria.  Numerous photographs (color and black and white) throughout the book.

In Japan, art and food meld into one, from the small local eatery to the more revered restaurants. Matt Goulding editor at the online journal Roads & Kingdoms, savors and appreciates the works of "shokunins" or artisans who take pride in the preparation and presentation of food. Goulding conveys such delight in what he experiences that readers will be salivating and dreaming of taking a foodie trip to Japan.

It is not necessary to cook to delight in this spectacularly beautiful and informative cookbook from the knowledgable Fuchsia Dunlop, English writer and Chinese food expert. She explores the culture and food traditions of the Jiangnan region. "Jiangnan spans the eastern coastal provinces of Zhejiang and Jiangsu, the city of Shanghai and that part of southern Anhui province known as Huizhou," and is known "as the land of fish and rice." Dunlop's thorough presentation of this region's food will be of particular interest to those who love Chinese cuisine.

 

To bring money and attention to the crisis in Syria, photographer Barbara Abdeni Massaad asked world food writers, chefs and others to contribute a favorite soup recipe to a cookbook. Working with Interlink Press, the profits of the cookbook project “ . . .  will be donated to the UN Refugee Agency UNHCR to provide urgently needed food relief for Syrian refugees.”

 

Angeleno and first-generation Filipino American Marvin Gapultos found a calling in making Filipino cuisine better known. This was accomplished in several ways: his blog Burnt Lumpia, The Manila Machine (a food truck), and in this cookbook.

 

In 1961, Cecilia Chiang's restaurant, The Mandarin, introduced authentic northern Chinese cuisine to San Francisco. This book is part memoir and part cookbook with many family recipes and signature recipes from the restaurant, and the author's own story of growing up in Communist China and postwar Japan and becoming the accidental owner of a restaurant.

Chef and cooking instructor Diana Kuan offers up a selection of chili sauces and dishes to go with them, and everything can be made at home.  There is a guide to heat intensity of ten chili peppers; types of rice and noodles; spices, vinegars and cooking oils; vegetables; cooking utensils; and online sources. Instructions for recipes are presented in a user-friendly format with beautiful full page color photographs.

Chef and restaurateur Selin Kiazim presents recipes for Turkish-Cypriot cuisine in this gorgeous book. She presents easy to follow recipes in a clear format, with numerous color photographs.

Joudie Kalla shares her family's heritage of great Palestinian home cooking, which has been passed on from her mother, her grandmother and all the women who cooked before. Throughout the book there are spectacular color photographs of people, places and food. Kalla includes a table of contents, an index, and for unique ingredients there is a list of U.S. suppliers.

Andrea Nguyen, food writer and chef, shows everyone how to make fresh Vietnamese dishes:  bánh mì, soups, seafood and meat dishes, salads, sweets and coffee, and more. She includes her special recipe for perfect rice, and a super-simple recipe for overnight rice porridge that includes all the toppings and add-ins.

The same-old sandwiches can get boring, but that can change with some simple ideas for a favorite Vietnamese street food.

 

Naz Deravian left Iran when she was eight years old, and has no memory of her last meal in Teheran. She does remember her first meal in Vancouver, British Columbia—a quarter pounder with cheese and fries at MacDonald’s. Now living in Los Angeles, she has recreated some favorites from home that are adapted to American cooking methods. A cookbook, a memoir, and lots of stories, with full-page color photos.

Award-winning authors, Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid, take us on an eating adventure through southern China, Burma, Cambodia, Laos and Thailand. They cover easy-to-make, delicious street foods.

Raghavan Iyer is the modern master of Indian cuisine, which is not just curry. The winner of three James Beard Awards, an Emmy, and other accolades, he makes it possible for everyone to cook and achieve the complex flavors of these traditional dishes.

Mainly a cookbook, but also a cultural tour of Istanbul and Turkish regions that reflect the cooking of Syria, Iran, Iraq, Armenia and Georgia. There are superb color photographs of food, people and landscapes throughout the book. The wife and husband team, respectively journalist Robyn Eckhardt and photographer David Hagerman, have spent twenty years traveling and doing research in Turkey. All kebabs are not alike, and there is a world of adventurous cooking and eating that awaits you.

Bread is the staff of life, and lavash is a type of flatbread that is an important component in Armenian cuisine. It is easy to make, to take-along, to eat on its own, to toast and brown, and is a very delicious way to scoop up dips, and for dipping into stews. Recipes include the basic bread and other dishes.

Anissa Helou celbrates the foods of many countries and regions, especially when writing about the culinary treasures to be found in the Mediterranean, the Middle East and North Africa. This is a memoir told through family recipes of her childhood in Lebanon and Syria.

Korean cuisine has complexity and many dishes take time to prepare. Michelin-star chef Hooni Kim makes it very easy to prepare and cook them in an American kitchen.

A James Beard 2018 award winning book about a one-dish meal that has a range of diversity making it easy to make, tasty and a staple of Vietnamese cuisine. Pho is comfort food.

Shuk is a market place, and an Israeli market has fresh food products and spices that represent Persia, Yemen, Libya, Palestine, various Balkan countries and parts of North Africa. These ingredients contribute to marvelous recipes that shake up the palate and taste buds in an unexpected way. Part of the narrative description for each recipe includes information about the country or culture of origin. Full-page color photographs make you want to start cooking now.

Georgia is Euroasian, at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, and has its very own special way of food preparation, ingredients, ways of serving and an abundance of hospitality. I have never had their food, but did meet a traveler who had, and he told me that he was almost fed like a child, by his hosts. The food was great!

The French and the Austrians pride themselves on rich, complicated, elaborate desserts and confections, which I love. However there is another world of richness to be found further east.
Arturo der Haroutunian will show you the way to sweets that will be great with a strong cup of coffee or tea.

Naomi Duguid, food writer and inveterate traveler, won a Jame Beard Award for this book, which covers Persian cuisine, but also those overlapping and influential tastes from other countries: The subtitle of the hard copy book is: a cook’s travels through Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Iran and Kurdistan.

 

 

Anas Atassi presents a cookbook and family memoir, as he draws upon recipes that have been handed down through generations of his family. There are full-page color photographs throughout the book; recipes are clearly written and include short personal comments and memories. Sumac is an essential ingredient to Syrian cooking, as it is throughout many other cuisines in the region.

Hetty McKinnon set out to capture the foods that her mother cooked that were "uncomplicated, colorful, soul-enriching."  Those foods were Cantonese-based, but this cookbook has recipes that are not strictly Chinese, and are more generaly Asian. A beautifully produced book on solid paper, with full-page color photographs and chapters that are centered around noodles, dumplings, rice, salad and sweets that are "not too sweet."

Native Californian and master chef Brandon Jew returned to his Chinese-American roots in San Francisco’s Chinatown, which is the oldest in the United States. In doing so he struck gold by remembering the cooking of his grandmother, Ying Ying, who “cooked by memory, taste and feel. Nothing was written down.” In this book the recipes are his spin on grandmother's, and there are rich full-page color photos, and wonderful stories.

 

 

The unique cuisine of Bangladesh is presented in 75 recipes based on the country’s six seasons. The recipes are interspersed with the author’s personal anecdotes and stories.

All kinds of Filipino sweet foods are presented in a cookbook that has full-page vibrant color photographs.