My Mexico: A Culinary Odyssey with More Than 300 Recipes | 
|  | | | Title: | My Mexico: A Culinary Odyssey with More Than 300 Recipes | | Author: | Diana Kennedy | | Publisher: | Clarkson Potter | | Type: | Book / Hardcover | | Publication Date: | 20 October, 1998 | | ISBN / ISBN-13: | 0609602470 / 9780609602478 | | List Price: | $37.50 | | You Save: | $12.75 | | Amazon Price: | $24.75 | |
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Product Description
"Why my Mexico?" asks Diana Kennedy in her introduction to this long-awaited book. The answer is simple and obvious: it is a highly personal book about the Mexico she knows. And no one knows Mexico the way Diana does. When Diana Kennedy first came to Mexico more than forty years ago, she did not intend to become the country's premier gastronome. But that is what she has become, traveling endlessly, learning the culinary histories of families, hunting elusive recipes, falling under the spell of the beauty of a countryside that produces such a wealth of foods. She has published five books and is referred to variously as the Julia Child, the Escoffier, and the high priestess of Mexican cooking. Most important, she has taken as her eternal project to record not only the wealth of Mexican culinary knowledge and folklore but also the fascinating stories behind it all.
My Mexico records Diana's recent wanderings, along with memories stored away from previous trips. With wondrous, novelistic prose, Diana tells the story behind her discovery of each dish, from the Pollo Almendrado (Chicken in Almond Sauce) she discovered in Oaxaca to the Estafado de Raya (Skate Stewed in Olive Oil) that delighted her in Coahuila. Yes, there are some fairly simple recipes for inexperienced cooks--look for the new guacamoles and the addictive chilatas. More complicated ones are for aficionados who know the intricacies of the ingredients.
Times have changed greatly since Diana published her first book. More and more ingredients are available in the U.S., and more and more people have learned of the true joys of real Mexican cooking. One thing has not changed--Diana Kennedy's passion. For those who already are familiar with her work, this volume is a much-needed addition to your library. For those who are not, you are in for a treat of the first order.
Amazon.com Review
Every country should have a Diana Kennedy, someone steeped in its culture and cooking who cruises around recording all the local recipes and sharing them with the world. My Mexico is Kennedy's rambling record of forays in pursuit of dishes that might be of interest. Based on the recipes she found, such as Posole de Camarone, a brothy shrimp and dried-corn stew, sweet Green Mango Roll, and tiny new potatoes cooked Shepherd style, Kennedy's travels have been quite fruitful. Anyone may enjoy the wealth of recipes in this book, but only connoisseurs of Mexican cooking familiar with the varied and regional nature of its food are likely to appreciate the unusual nature of Kennedy's finds. Concentrating on what is unique, the author refers readers to her previous five works on Mexico for fundamental techniques or other background. Even the method for making masa in My Mexico is an uncommon one, presented to Kennedy by the woman who waters her plants. This literate work is rich in almost novelistic descriptions. Long passages describe her graphic observations. She shares her love of the country where she has lived since 1957 with equal measures of loving passion and curmudgeonly criticism. Charts and photos help show the variety of chiles and other foods that help give Mexican cooking its constant, often subtle variety. When recipes call for pulque, a mildly fermented juice from the agave plant, sour tunas, a kind of cactus fruit, or other ingredients you can't get, move on to her more accessible dishes or, as Kennedy did, let this book be a journey of discoveries. --Dana Jacobi
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Customer Reviews:
• Fabulous Mexico 12 February, 2006
This is a book every lover of fine cuisine must read. It gives a whole new face to Mexican food. I loved Diana Kennedy's tales of how she came to find the various recipes, the harrowing journeys into the country to find the recipes she'd heard of, her description of the people she encountered in kitchens, over open fires, in little inns.
Reading the book makes you want to explore the country, try all the different foods, and try to prepare the foods as well. You can lose yourself in the book. It is written so well that you can taste and smell every detail of Kennedy's description.
This is not just a cookbook, it is a journey into a wonderful culture, and culture "junkey" that I am, I relished every word.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A18EPKE0KX6W6R
• Very Personal Culinary Tour. Not For The Novice Mexican 19 May, 2005
`My Mexico' by leading authority on Mexican food, Diana Kennedy is her eighth book, seven of which are on Mexican cuisine. This easily puts her in the forefront of writers on national cuisines, along with Julia Child, Penelope Casas, Marcella Hazan, and Diane Kochilas. It even puts her ahead of the very well known writer, educator, and Chicago restaurateur, Rick Bayless, who has paltry four books on Mexican food to his credit.
I have reviewed Ms. Kennedy's ninth book, `From My Mexican Kitchen', which I consider a real gem among treatises on the techniques of national cuisines. It goes into various techniques, especially baking, on which Ms. Kennedy is a certifiable expert, to a level of detail that one rarely sees in other books. The current book under consideration is much different from the later volume and should expect to find a much narrower audience.
`My Mexico' is a personal culinary diary, with echos of a John Steinbeck `Travels With Charley' air about it. Like many other culinary surveys, it is organized by Mexican province rather than by type of dish. And, unlike Ms. Casas' excellent `Delicioso!' culinary geography of Spain, with lots of interesting summaries of characteristics of the various regions, Ms. Kennedy is purely the tourist in this book, dwelling on the specific people and places and dishes she encounters in her travels throughout Mexico.
As an aside, I will add the opinion that Ms. Kennedy seems to find much ugliness in the urban development, congestion, lack of good highways, and disappearance of natural beauty in her beloved Mexico. The recitation of changes she finds distasteful make one wonder how her affection for the country survives the uncontrolled and somewhat corrupt development in Mexico. But then, she talks about the food and all seems forgiven.
As someone who is not nearly as familiar with Mexico as I have come to be of Italy, France, Germany, or England, the first thing I miss is a good map. This absence is especially noisome as this is about culinary geography, regardless of how personal. The second thing I miss is a listing of recipes by type of dish. As all recipes in the text are located by region or state, many of whose names are unknown to me, a listing by primary ingredient or course in the style of most cookbooks would make this book much more valuable to the novice to Mexican food. The book does include an alphabetical listing of recipes, but since it is alphabetical by Spanish name, it doesn't do me much good. I can barely find my way around culinary Italian, let alone Spanish. My study of German does little good in the largely Latin world of culinary diversity.
This is the kind of book that will be enjoyed primarily by people who already know and love Mexico. I get the picture of such readers being hobbits at Bilbo Baggins 111th birthday party with their feet up on the table and nibbling to fill in the odd, empty corners of their generous stomachs. This is the book for people who would not learn much from yet another book of familiar Mexican recipes. I would get pleasure out of a similar book on German or Austrian cuisine as I have been to many places in Germany and I believe there are not enough books concentrating on Austro-Hungarian cuisine.
Ending on a positive note, I relish the discovery in this book of a culinary treatment of cuitlacoche (on page 456), the fungus that grows on corn and which I understand it is a great delicacy in Mexico. I have been familiar with this foul looking stuff for many years, but I first encountered its culinary interest on the very first Food Network `Iron Chef America' show pitting Bobby Flay against Sr. Bayless of Frontera Grill. I was really rooting for Bayless, who lost by a single point to Flay, and I was left wondering, with Alton Brown, who was the brave soul who first looked at the stuff as something good to eat. Well, Ms. Kennedy fills us in on the subject.
Highly recommended for all who can't get enough of books about Mexican food. For all other, check out Ms. Kennedy's other books.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A20IIR0422G3A5
• This Is The Best Book Ever!! 26 August, 2006
it's like going to mexico everytime you read it and the recipes are very authentic and tasty. this is my all time favorite book.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A1R45R7SJR67WG
• Great Book. Needs Spanish Version :-) 22 June, 2007
This is a wonderful book. Reason I give 4 stars is that it needs pictures of the recipes.
Also, It would be nice to have it in Spanish as well.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A30DUZ935GNITX
• A Delicious Accomplishment 24 June, 2008
No one has better brought Mexican cuisine into the forefront of world gastronomy, and this book assembles a privileged collection of recipes, ingredients, techniques, as well as anecdotes on their discovery and preparation. Diana Kennedy, an adventurer in her own right, is a monument to diligence, against the background of her love and appreciation for Mexico's villages, landscape and singular intricacies, which she explores at will.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A1BIICNFWM8JWP
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