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This indispensable cookbook, an instant classic when first published in 1989, is now back in print with a brand-new introduction from the most celebrated authority on Mexican cooking, Diana Kennedy. The culmination of more than fifty years of living, traveling, and cooking in Mexico, The Art of Mexican Cooking is the ultimate guide to creating authentic Mexican food in your own kitchen, with more than 200 beloved recipes as well as evocative illustrations.
The dishes included, favorites from all the regions of Mexico, range from sophisticated to pure and simple, but they all share an intrinsic depth of taste. Aficionados will go to great lengths to duplicate the authentic dishes (and Kennedy tells them exactly how), but here too is a wealth of less complicated recipes for the casual cook in search of the unmistakable flavors of a bold cuisine.
Kennedy shares the secrets of true Mexican flavor: balancing the piquant taste of chiles with a little salt and acid, for instance, or charring them to round out their flavor; broiling tomatoes to bring out their character, or adding cumin for a light accent. By using Kennedy’s kitchen wisdom and advice, and carefully selecting produce that is now readily available in most American markets, cooks with an appetite for Mexican cuisine–and Kennedy devotees old and new–can at last serve and enjoy real Mexican food.
“This is the ultimate in Mexican cooking from the world’s leading authority.”
—Paula Wolfert, author of The Cooking of South-West France
The dishes included, favorites from all the regions of Mexico, range from sophisticated to pure and simple, but they all share an intrinsic depth of taste. Aficionados will go to great lengths to duplicate the authentic dishes (and Kennedy tells them exactly how), but here too is a wealth of less complicated recipes for the casual cook in search of the unmistakable flavors of a bold cuisine.
Kennedy shares the secrets of true Mexican flavor: balancing the piquant taste of chiles with a little salt and acid, for instance, or charring them to round out their flavor; broiling tomatoes to bring out their character, or adding cumin for a light accent. By using Kennedy’s kitchen wisdom and advice, and carefully selecting produce that is now readily available in most American markets, cooks with an appetite for Mexican cuisine–and Kennedy devotees old and new–can at last serve and enjoy real Mexican food.
“This is the ultimate in Mexican cooking from the world’s leading authority.”
—Paula Wolfert, author of The Cooking of South-West France
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
...except for by her other books.
They call Diana Kennedy "the High Priestess of Mexican cooking", and no other words come even close to describe Mrs Kennedy's passion for authenticity. I've long been waiting for a book to feature authentic Mexican recipes, authentic as in how the people of Mexico cook, not the Mexican restaurants targeting tourists. The recipes in this book are as authentic as recipes can go. You won't find combination platters here. Most recipes are a far cry from the uniform watered down glut of so-called "Mexican" dishes available in too many Mexican restaurants in Europe - refreshingly different indeed, made with ingredients that Mexican people eat day-by-day, not the meat-laden north-of-the-border versions.
Stories of country and people prelude many recipes as well as Mrs Kennedy's own experiences traveling the country in search for authentic Mexican fayre, and wherever possible origins of foods and cooking techniques are traced down to the source. Cooking techniques and the quality of the ingredients is something Mrs Kennedy doesn't compromise on, and she doesn't tire of driving these points home yet all within reason and without boring the reader. Personally, I adore Mrs Kennedy's style of writing and her instructions - straight to the point, and without beating around the bush.
In the back material of the book, Mrs Kennedy gives suggestions on how to substitute certain ingredients, fully aware they are not readily available everywhere outside Mexico, and there is a big chance your local supermarket stocks them, but if not with a bit of internet research and determination you will find them all even here in the UK (but if you can find the real thing, you should always go for that, to preserve the character of the dish). Chili peppers, unfortunately for many of us, are mostly not interchangeable, but dried Mexican chili peppers are available domestically via the internet (a good quality dried chili should be pliable without breaking, something to judge your supplier by!)
The only minus of this book for me is that there are no pictures of the ready-cooked dishes, and the reader just has to use her/his imagination - but bearing in mind that no homemade dish (and probably no restaurant-prepared one either) ever looks like those on pictures in expensive high-gloss cooking volumes it is maybe not quite such a tragedy after all, I just like looking at them.
Before all you food enthusiasts out there go all gung-ho and on a shopping spree for all of Mrs Kennedy's books, I would like to point a few things out. In some ways, this book is nothing for the fainthearted: To start with, it is not a good investment for worshippers of shortcut ingredients and microwave heating. If you are not willing to spend some time and effort in the preparation (and Mrs Kennedy tells you so; but a number of dishes are from start to finish: 30 mins.), you might as well give authenticity a miss and settle for Euro-Mex instead. A very few recipes use ingredients such as chicken blood, or describe how to make your own blood sausage - but these recipes are really really few and far in between.
They call Diana Kennedy "the High Priestess of Mexican cooking", and no other words come even close to describe Mrs Kennedy's passion for authenticity. I've long been waiting for a book to feature authentic Mexican recipes, authentic as in how the people of Mexico cook, not the Mexican restaurants targeting tourists. The recipes in this book are as authentic as recipes can go. You won't find combination platters here. Most recipes are a far cry from the uniform watered down glut of so-called "Mexican" dishes available in too many Mexican restaurants in Europe - refreshingly different indeed, made with ingredients that Mexican people eat day-by-day, not the meat-laden north-of-the-border versions.
Stories of country and people prelude many recipes as well as Mrs Kennedy's own experiences traveling the country in search for authentic Mexican fayre, and wherever possible origins of foods and cooking techniques are traced down to the source. Cooking techniques and the quality of the ingredients is something Mrs Kennedy doesn't compromise on, and she doesn't tire of driving these points home yet all within reason and without boring the reader. Personally, I adore Mrs Kennedy's style of writing and her instructions - straight to the point, and without beating around the bush.
In the back material of the book, Mrs Kennedy gives suggestions on how to substitute certain ingredients, fully aware they are not readily available everywhere outside Mexico, and there is a big chance your local supermarket stocks them, but if not with a bit of internet research and determination you will find them all even here in the UK (but if you can find the real thing, you should always go for that, to preserve the character of the dish). Chili peppers, unfortunately for many of us, are mostly not interchangeable, but dried Mexican chili peppers are available domestically via the internet (a good quality dried chili should be pliable without breaking, something to judge your supplier by!)
The only minus of this book for me is that there are no pictures of the ready-cooked dishes, and the reader just has to use her/his imagination - but bearing in mind that no homemade dish (and probably no restaurant-prepared one either) ever looks like those on pictures in expensive high-gloss cooking volumes it is maybe not quite such a tragedy after all, I just like looking at them.
Before all you food enthusiasts out there go all gung-ho and on a shopping spree for all of Mrs Kennedy's books, I would like to point a few things out. In some ways, this book is nothing for the fainthearted: To start with, it is not a good investment for worshippers of shortcut ingredients and microwave heating. If you are not willing to spend some time and effort in the preparation (and Mrs Kennedy tells you so; but a number of dishes are from start to finish: 30 mins.), you might as well give authenticity a miss and settle for Euro-Mex instead. A very few recipes use ingredients such as chicken blood, or describe how to make your own blood sausage - but these recipes are really really few and far in between.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I think im a competent home cook, but I find this book difficult. Some of the ingredients are hard to get where i live (and therfore, i had no idea if it tasted like it should) and it doesnt have any photos of how the food should look. I think you need to be really keen and have a basic knowledge of Mexican food (which i clearly dont) to get the full use from the book and its fair to say i have only used it 6/7 times. Might just be me, but i struggled.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I bought this book on my first trip to Mexico in 1995 and I havent found the need to buy any other mexican cookbook since. If I do it will be from that same author. The recipies are all authentic and delicious, well explained along with other basic information. This book is the most detailed and in dept information you can get on the subject.
(Its not TexMex, so if you are looking for that kind of food then this is not the book you are looking for!)
And its not a book with many photos, just very few and some drawings, but I can tell it has taken lots of time and effort to write - lots of experience and research has gone into the making of this book, because mexican cooking is not an easy task.
I saw that another review has given this book just 3 stars. Thats not fair, but this is what happens when people are asked to give their opinion on a subject they dont know and have no previous experience of. I understand the frustration, but the book is not to be blamed just because the subject is complicated, and the ingridients are hard to obtain. The universal problem with cooking mexican food is to obtain the ingridients you will need, this is to be your biggest task unless you live in Mexico or close to its borders, and this should be the only reason why you could end up deciding not to buy this book. There are some recipies wich can be cooked with out special mexican chilis/ingridients, but they are not that many.
How ever I do agree that its diffecult to know if the recipy you follow will turn out authentically as you have no previous experience to compare with, but this is always the case when we have to try out new recipies. In this book the recipies are so well explained that you simply cant go wrong if you follow them step by step.
I have always harvested positive remarks when serving dishes from this book, they are even able to make native mexicans ask me for the recipy. I should mention that my wife is mexican and I have lived in Mexico for some years.
(Its not TexMex, so if you are looking for that kind of food then this is not the book you are looking for!)
And its not a book with many photos, just very few and some drawings, but I can tell it has taken lots of time and effort to write - lots of experience and research has gone into the making of this book, because mexican cooking is not an easy task.
I saw that another review has given this book just 3 stars. Thats not fair, but this is what happens when people are asked to give their opinion on a subject they dont know and have no previous experience of. I understand the frustration, but the book is not to be blamed just because the subject is complicated, and the ingridients are hard to obtain. The universal problem with cooking mexican food is to obtain the ingridients you will need, this is to be your biggest task unless you live in Mexico or close to its borders, and this should be the only reason why you could end up deciding not to buy this book. There are some recipies wich can be cooked with out special mexican chilis/ingridients, but they are not that many.
How ever I do agree that its diffecult to know if the recipy you follow will turn out authentically as you have no previous experience to compare with, but this is always the case when we have to try out new recipies. In this book the recipies are so well explained that you simply cant go wrong if you follow them step by step.
I have always harvested positive remarks when serving dishes from this book, they are even able to make native mexicans ask me for the recipy. I should mention that my wife is mexican and I have lived in Mexico for some years.
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