Gran Cocina Latina: The Food of Latin America

This book is absolutely amazing. I cannot recommend it highly enough. I have other books on Mexican cuisine (Kennedy and Bayless) and a couple of Caribbean cookbook, but this book covers the varied cuisines of the Latin world with such incredible detail that it is easily my favorite on the subject. I had intitially imagined it to be like a Latin Larousse, but with its straightforward style and infectious enthusiasm for the cuisine, it is its own beast, and a beautiful one at that! While it does not offer a complete view of the cuisines of any one country (a little disappointed to not have a pipian verde recipe), I can't imagine any book coming as close to doing so as this one does. The recipes are straightforward and presented with introductions that makes them hard to resist. Ever since I received the book I've been scouring the internet for different rare ingredients(Chiles chilhuacles, chiles mirasol, chicha jora, to name a few), but the book overs good substitutions for ingredients that you may have difficulty procuring outside of their native regions (I'm looking at you, chilhuacles negros!). I've already made a Peruvian adobo from the book and just finished grinding together chiles pequin and cocoa nibs to create in incredible Mayan seasoning brick that can be grated onto dishes as needed. I'm also gathering up the ingredients to make the epic Oaxacan mole negro for Halloween (I'm absolutely fascinated by the prospect of burning a bunch of chile seeds to carbon and using them to color the sauce- noxious fumes be damned!) Who knows, by next summer I may even be planting my own selection of chiles and herbs that I can make more of these fantastic recipes. If you have any interest in authentic Latin cuisine, or are passionate about the art of cooking in any way, you need to buy this book. It will surely earn a prominent place amongst your cookbooks and on your kitchen counters.

This is the best book I’ve seen so far!! As a native from Central America I was sad to realize that I didn’t know a lot of recipes when I moved from home. After searching for a while I came across this book, the amount of recipes is amazing. I found recipes for real traditional dishes from different countries, the book gives a lot of details and even small tips. I love how you can find different types of recipes from street food to more complex food. If you want to learn how to make real food from Latin American countries this is probably the best book you’ll find. Comes with a ton of recipes and easy to understand instructions. I’m not sure why people is complaining about the history part, this is a cooking book so I don’t expect it to be accurate in that matter.

I have gone though this book entirely and started with a few recipes immediately after. I impressed with the breadth and organization of the regional influences. Happy to have this cookbook and I will use it often.

This cookbook is worthy of your coffee table - within its 3-inch binding is everything you could want or need to know about Latin food! I am a Latin-food enthusiast, and was looking for basic preparations from which to build my own variations on basic recipes. This book fits the bill: basic cooking 101 for salsas, mojos, mole sauces, pork roasts, you name it. I finally learned how to properly prepare yuca roots for cooking with her step-by-step directions! The author often includs background on a recipe or details about the origins of different foods, preparations, and terminology. This is clearly a labor of love, and I highly recommend anyone with a passion for Latin food pick it up for inspiration. It is a first edition, and does have some typos, but so far I've only found 2 and they were page-reference numbers that were wrong. But that does not detract from the extensive coverage and attention to detail. Definitely my all-time favorite cookbook!

I am excited to dig through this book! I was looking for something to use for potlucks in my medieval recreationist group that wasn't euro-centric and this is it! The author gives details describing how recipes were adapted after the Columbian exchange in the late 15th and early 16th centuries. I can't wait to bring dishes from this book that are right out of history!!

Great reference book with an assortment of recipes from the Latin culture. Some recipes vary from the traditional ingredients and methods used by family. Varied recipes are not uncommon when they have been passed down from generation to generation. Latin recipes are also known to vary from region to region as well as from country to country, so don't let varying recipes discourage you. Overall a great reference book for Latin cuisine with a wide variety of great recipes.

A big cookbook award winner this year was Maricel Presilla's Gran Cocina Latina, which was awarded Cookbook of the Year by the James Beard Foundation and the General Award by the IACP. So, with those credentials, it's worth a look. The key to why Presilla's Gran Cocina Latina will be a success as a cookbook and as a major contribution to the literature is to be found in her acknowledgements way back on page 859 where she writes: "The book is about crossovers, the taking of recipes from their home turf to a different environment to give them new life." Back in 1972, Diana Kennedy wrote the Cuisines of Mexico. It endures as a classic authoritative source. But as a cookbook it's user-hostile. Our copy has been gathering dust in the library for forty years. Presilla's narratives are informative, hugely readable and entertaining. She has a nice touch between history, regional color and introspection. This book promises to be user-friendly. There are only a few recipes that appear too daunting for the home cook without a Latin pantry. For sure, I am going to get into the chapters on Little Latin Dishes and Cebiches. But not before her chapter in Hot Pepper Pots. Gathering stews and braised dishes from the entire Latin world and placing them in their own chapter is so inventive that it suggests genius. Gran Cocina Latina is the new canon of Latin American food. A triumph of research and application.

This cookbook is truly amazing. Very inspiring if you love any kind of Latin food and want to try making it at home. Personally, I was looking for a cookbook that explained in detail how to make many Argentine recipes (I'm Argentine) that was current and English and this book does that, and far more, covering all of Latin America. I love reading all the history and incredible detail that she provides on each recipe. I'm trying out her Leaping Frog chicken recipe today and all the spices together smelled heavenly as I was dressing the chicken. Excited to see how it comes together. My only complaint -- and I agree with other reviewers that many of the ingredients that she suggests are hard to find so the one thing missing for me is a resources section of the book of where to find these ingredients. I live in Brooklyn and I know Maricel Presilla, our author, lives in Hoboken, NJ so its possible I could go to some of her local stores, or even order special ingredients online but she doesn't give her readers a lot of hints on where to source these special ingredients, online or local to her, which is a bit of a bummer. Maybe she can add that to a second edition!

Excellent read. Great format

Se você gosta e quer saber mais sobre a gastronomia da América Latina TEM QUE TER esse livro. Muuuuito bom. Melhor aquisição do ano.

Not your usual book for Latino fare but... Still, I have enjoyed many salsas and soups found here thus far. Comprehensive and likely to help you appreciate the distinctions between different cuisines in the Latino world. Some ingredients may be hard to source in a small town but the web can help. I absolutely love the chicken soup -simple and delicious!

Mit Verwandtschaft in Guatemala und Argentinien habe ich lange nach einem Kochbuch gesucht, in dem ich ganz Lateinamerika wiederfinde! Hier ist es! Es ist nicht nur ein Kochbuch, es ist eine wissenschaftliche Abhandlung über die Küche Lateinamerikas! Wunderbar, klare Empfehlung!

If you really want to get under the hood of Latin American cuisine this is the book. If you want a quick recipe this is not the book but I would encourage you to change your mind and get under the hood with this book. Extremely well written with anecdotal stories and historical references that at first I thought would be just a hindrance to getting to grips with the cuisine but rapidly realised that they are an integral part of understanding Latin American cuisine and culture and the two are integral. The author is a very intelligent and educated author nom domiciled in the US who has travelled Latin America, has a doctorate in medieval Spanish history and is the chef and co-owner of Cucharamama in Hoboken, New Jersey. You can't get much better pedigree than that.The history background is a big part of what drives this book. I have read thousands of cook books and collect antique cook books and modern classic. This is the latter. This is a cookbook you can sit and read and really enjoy. It is worth twice the price. You will not regret buying this book.