From My Mexican Kitchen: Techniques and Ingredients [Hardcover]

Diana Kennedy's new book on Mexican cooking is the gold standard for books on country / regional cuisines. The credit to Ms. Kennedy is enhanced by the fact that the material in the book was quite plainly not written and produced by a team. The depth of the material is exceptional, considering the fact that Mexican cuisine is as broad and as regionally diverse as the more widely storied cuisines of Italy and France.

The book is much more than a collection of recipes. In many ways, it is a Larousse Gastronomique for Mexico, with all of the weight of authority that name carries,including sections on:

Menus - A small section, very informative for Mexican newbies, but not very deep.
Ingredients - All sections are deep and rewarding.
- Dairy
- Fats
- Chiles
- Herbs
- Vegetables and Fruits
- Meats
- Grains (Rice and Pasta)
- Seasonings
Techniques - Exceptional, doubly so because it includes both weights and metric units of measure.
- Antojitos
- Moles
- Table Sauces
- Tamales
- Tortillas
- Vinegar
- Yeast Breads
Utensils Native to Mexico - Some blemishes here. See below
Mexican Food Terms - Some blemishes.
Sources of Ingredients - By state in the US.

Note that unlike the situation with French and Italian ingredients, Ms. Kennedy generally has a low opinion of the quality of Mexican ingredients available in the United States. This makes it doubly useful that she has provided the means of making several of these base ingredients in the home.

As Diana points out in the introduction, she is both the food stylist and the hand model for all of the excellent photographs by Michael Calderwood. The photographs clearly enhance the value of the book.

I am not very familiar with Mexican techniques myself, so, to evaluate the recipes, I concentrated on the baking sections and can say that they are worthy of the best presentations I have seen by baking specialists. In baking even more than with other techniques, measuring by weight, more especially measuring by the more precise metric scale, is essential to achieving consistant results, and Ms. Kennedy gives you the `full 9 meters' to good measuring, tempered by techniques to compensate for humidity. It even includes some tips I have not found in books dedicated to baking.

One of the greatest and most unexpected pleasures to be found by reading this book is the sense Ms. Kennedy gives you of her belonging to a community of cookbook authors. She does not simply drop names. She cites and credits people like Julia Child and Paula Wolfert for their insights and facts uncovered. The thrill is not so much in acquiring this information as it is in seeing the author and her subject placed within a broader world of culinary ethnology.

There are three sections to the book which could have benefited from some judicious copy editing. The first is the introduction where many Mexican terms and locations are used before they were explained. It would have been better to place this section after the section entitled `Mexico'. The second is the Mexican Food Terms section. It is said that some terms cannot be translated into English, yet the explanation of the term does not succeed in really communicating the sense of the term. The third is the `Utensils Native to Mexico' where a similar problem occurs. A term has no English equivalent, yet the book does not provide a picture of the utensil, even though pictures of translated terms have excellent pictures accompanying the text. Don't get me wrong, this section is very, very good. It just has some things which could be better. One last criticism, also in the purview of a copy editor, is some awkward word usage, such as when people `waft' between Mexico and the US. Doesn't work for me.

A rare but excellent feature of this book is the references to recipes and techniques in Ms. Kennedy's earlier books. I'm sure this can be annoying for someone who does not own these books, but it ultimately adds to the value of the present value as well as enhancing the value of her earlier books. At the very least, it means you are not paying for things which have been published elsewhere. I can think of more than a few cookbook writers who would benefit from this feature.

Anyone who has any interest in Mexican cuisine will be richly rewarded by reading this book from cover to cover. Anyone who has a general interest in good cookbook writing will be rewarded by reading this book from cover to cover. Anyone who has an interest in the origins of cuisine will find much here, but this is a cookbook, not a book of history or linguistics. Anyone with an interest in trying new types of baking (or suggestions on how to write a good baking recipe) will find many rewards here. I would look to this book before executing any Mexican recipe by any author. This is a book against which others should be judged. I would hope other authors would go to school on this volume.

Words cannot do justice to my high opinion of this outstanding cooking resource. Ms. Diana Kennedy (whom I already held in high esteem as the Julia Child of authentic Mexican cuisine) has outdone herself. She not only answered every unanswered question I had about ingredients and food preparation . . . she also taught me what I didn't know that I didn't know. Although my humble skills and impatience with scratch cooking will prohibit me from ever making more than a handful of these outstanding dishes in the proper manner, whatever I do make will be much better for what I learned From My Mexican Kitchen. I am especially indebted to the many photographs that portray the ingredients and the tricky steps of preparation.

Although the book is encyclopedic in its coverage from my perspective, clearly Ms. Kennedy was just scratching the surface of her knowledge. I hope she will consider taking some of the sections here (such as Making Antojitos, Tamales and Utensils) and making them into full length books.

To appreciate how detailed her knowledge is, you need to realize that she tells you about how the same dish is prepared in every part of Mexico . . . and how those practices differ among younger and older chefs. So there's an element of cultural anthropology here, too. I was especially grateful for her help in straightening out the various names applied to ingredients and dishes (which vary a lot from area to area) because they often contradict one another in meaning.

If you just buy the book and learn about what she has to say about preparing fresh and dried chiles, you will feel more than rewarded. That section was a masterpiece!

She also explains the many mysteries of lard . . . including how to prepare it, how it compares in flavor to vegetable oils, how the appearance of the dishes are helped, and what the health pros and cons are.

The section on tamales was equally fascinating. I have never seen them made, and was reluctant to try. With this book, it should be a snap.

If you are wondering how the book fits in with her many other books, Ms. Kennedy cross-references recipes and sections in those books. There are also a few basic recipes (many of them repeats from the other books) so you can start applying what you learn here.

If you have read none of her books, you have a great series of treats (and taste treats, as well!) ahead of you. I suggest that you buy this one first and graduate to The Art of Mexican Cooking as your next resource.

The book's sections cover:

-- Cheeses and Cream
-- Cooking Fats and Oils
-- Fresh and Dried Chiles
-- Fresh and Dried Herbs
-- Vegetables, Beans, and Fruits
-- Meat, Poultry, and Seafood
-- Rice and Pasta
-- Spices, Aromatics, and Sweeteners
-- Making Antojitos
-- Making Moles
-- Making Table Sauces
-- Making Tamales
-- Making Tortillas
-- Making Vinegar
-- Making Yeast Breads
-- Utensils

Via con Dios!

This cookbook is an exceptional production by Diana Kennedy, winner of the IACP (International Association of Culinary Professionals) Lifetime Achievement Award. The multitudinous photos (Michael Calderwood) use her hands as models of perfect techniques for most of the recipes. You can't read and view the book without knowing exactly what to do. Even if you know a great deal about Mexican and Southwest cooking, you will learn an immense amount from this well-illustrated book. She shares her secrets and knowledge with all, and you can choose just how complex to make a recipe, from toasted seeds (typical), to avocado leaves (traditional, but hard to find). I own a number of her cookbooks, including out of print books, and am utterly delighted to have this set of her experiences laid out before me. You will notice she is wearing a white apron and blouse, a great idea to deal with foods which stain easily, from peppers to tomatoes. I wish I had the address of her apron company; it would save me a lot of t-shirt stains.

Seriously, this is the most explanatory of all her books so far. You would be remiss in not having it in your collection.