The World on a Plate
40 Cuisines, 100 Recipes, and the Stories Behind Them
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- $4.99
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- $4.99
Publisher Description
Eat your way around the world without leaving your home in this mouthwatering cultural history of 100 classic dishes.
Best Culinary Travel Book (U.K.), Gourmand World Cookbook Awards
Finalist for the Fortnum & Mason Food Book Award
“When we eat, we travel.” So begins this irresistible tour of the cuisines of the world, revealing what people eat and why in forty cultures. What’s the origin of kimchi in Korea? Why do we associate Argentina with steak? Why do people in Marseille eat bouillabaisse? What spices make a dish taste North African versus North Indian? What is the story behind the curries of India? And how do you know whether to drink a wine from Bourdeaux or one from Burgundy?
Bubbling over with anecdotes, trivia, and lore—from the role of a priest in the genesis of Camembert to the Mayan origins of the word chocolate—The World on a Plate serves up a delicious mélange of recipes, history, and culinary wisdom to be savored by food lovers and armchair travelers alike.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Holland, the British editor of Guardian Cook, draws from a dizzyingly broad sweep of world cooking for this discussion of terroir, ingredients, methods, and spices. The idea of her book, she says earnestly, is for readers to be able to sample global cuisines in their homes. Each section includes history and geography lessons as well as culinary information; the section on South Korea, for example, offers a small sample map, an introduction to Korean cooking in four pages ("Korean food makes you work hard"), a pantry list including daikon and jeotgal (a fermented condiment), and recipes for beef bulgogi and the national pickled dish of kimchi. Such European countries as France, Spain, and Italy earn breakdowns by region (e.g., Loire Valley, Andalucia), while Scandinavia gets a general grouping (praised for "Viking pragmatism"), and the Middle East is summarized by some shared ingredients among Turkey, Israel, and Iran (Holland emphasizes the extent and influence of Persian cooking). The author traces the South American chili pepper across the cuisines of Africa and India for a sampling of transformative recipes Kashmiri rogan josh, Ethiopian chickpea stew as well as a spice route. She admits she has never visited West Africa and has gleaned those recipes from notable experts, authors, and chefs. This is a tightly scripted encyclopedic experience, not an original or hands-on cookbook.
