Synopsis
Why do cuisines everywhere produce the same kinds of dishes - tart refreshing salads, hearty meals in a pot, palate-tickling condiments? Popular food historian Elisabeth Rozin has long been fascinated with the universal activity called cooking. In her first book, the much admired and highly influential Flavor Principle Cookbook (later revised, expanded, and republished as Ethnic Cuisine), she codified the various flavor combinations that characterize ethnic and regional cuisines and differentiate them from one another.
Now in The Universal Kitchen she focuses on similarities rather than differences, on the structures and techniques shared by cultures throughout history. The book begins with the most basic dish of all, "Meat on a Stick," ranging from Armenian Shish Kabob to Singapore Beef Satay to Creole Barbecued Oysters. Similarly, the theme of dough wrapped around a savory stuffing is illustrated by such variations as Indian samosas, Mexican quesadillas, and Jewish knishes.
Earthy and erudite, Rozin takes us on a gastronomic odyssey, from the classic Salade Nicoise to her grandma's unburnt cucumber salad, to show how the food of people all over the world has evolved along similar lines, a testament to the kitchen as a focus of our common humanity and to the cook as the interpreter of our shared culinary heritage.
Reviews
Food historian and cookbook author Rozin (Blue Corn and Chocolate, LJ 2/15/92) has written a fascinating account of how closely related our different culinary traditions actually are. She draws interesting connections between dishes from all over the world to prove her point, showing, for example, that many cuisines use a saute of onions and other aromatic vegetables as a flavoring base (from Spain's sofrito to France's mirepoix to the Malaysian rempeh) or how similar the knish, the samosa, and the spring roll are. In chapters that include "Meat on a Stick," "Broken Eggs," and "The Condimental Extra," she provides both traditional and cross-cultural recipes from cuisines as diverse as those of Burma, Greece, and Afghanistan, most of them not overly complicated and all of them mouthwatering. Highly recommended.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Food historian Rozin has contributed a new cookbook that illustrates through a thoughtful juxtaposition of recipes from around the world that every cuisine, no matter how different it seems, has something in common with another cooking style from the other side of the planet. For example, a veal and mushroom sauce for noodles or potatoes has the same basic bits of meat and vegetable as a Cantonese crab and leek sauce for rice. By bringing together such disparate items, Rozin helps the cook see both the diversity and the unity of world cuisine. The really imaginative cook can use this book as inspiration for creation of cross-cultural dishes that combine spices from one continent with meats and vegetables from another. Although the recipes in themselves are not remarkable to the sophisticated cook, Rosin's unique synthesis makes the book a very different and worthwhile culinary world tour. Mark Knoblauch
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