Hold the groans at the announcement of yet another vegetarian cookbook, because Wells and readers of the
New Internationalist magazine have put together an information-packed gastronomic tour of other worlds. Plus, the great color photographs appearing on nearly every page lighten her occasional preachy text on the merits of vegetarianism. And the six full-page sidebars on specific ingredients (such as bananas, corn, and noodles) provide useful--and amusing--data. Her 150 recipes are divided into four sections, from starters to desserts, and are further grouped by area and country. So, in addition to the all-too-familiar dal, hummus, and tabbouli, more exotic dishes include Mozambique's cashed nuts piri piri, Bahamian gunga (pigeon peas and rice), boiled pumpkin from Malawi, and Aamras, an Indian mango dessert.
Barbara Jacobs
Reader Reviews
There are a number of things that I like about this cookbook, in addition to the tasty recipes themselves. First, it really does cover most of the world (the only countries left out are Europe and the US/Canada but I guess the author figured we already get a lot of those cookbooks). There are recipes from Bangladesh, Bahamas, Cambodia, Ghana, Syria, Kenya, Thailand, Guatemala, Brazil, Jamaica, Indonesia, Malaysia, Afganistan, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, El Salvador, Dominican Republic, Egypt, Haiti, Algeria, Peru, and I could go on. There is a nice intro section (35pgs) that talks about nutrition, where to get certain vitamins/minerals and some history of eating habits/the force of marketing/big money - how we got so hooked on eating animals. Then the recipes are broken out into the following sections:Starters & Snacks, Main Dishes, Side Dishes, Deserts & Drinks. Within each of these sections the recipes are broken out by continent (Africa, Asia, Middle East, Caribbean & Latin America) and the recipes themselves have a little intro that's stpecific to the food as well as the country its from and the native name for it. Color pictures and artwork is on every page and there's lots of interesting information - more than just a cookbook but short stories about world eating which is neat. The recipes are good from what I've tried so far. They're pretty straightforward and rely more on the flavors of the vegetables than on putting lots of different spices in there. The spices that it does call for are easily found (e.g. cumin, chili peppers, paprika, cilantro etc) Thumbs up on this gem - lots of fun to read as well as cook from.
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