Celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month (September 15 to October 15) by checking out some of our Latin American cookbooks and adding a few new recipes to your repertoire. Featuring dishes from Patagonia to Puebla to Ponce and everywhere in between, these books are sure to inspire.
The 2013 James Beard Foundation Cookbook of the Year and by far the most comprehensive book of this list, Gran Cocina Latina: The Food of the Latin American World, provides readers with over 500 recipes from Central and South America and the Caribbean. Each chapter has a thorough introduction and nearly every recipe is paired with an annotation describing its historical and cultural significance. Further, the author expounds on kitchen tools, flavor, techniques and even condiments for several chapters before arriving at the bulk of the recipes.
If you're looking for Latin American flavors within the vegetarian and vegan realm, check out Viva Vegan. Vegan chef and co-author of the Veganomicon, Terry Hope Romero, presents healthy and flavorful recipes focusing on using whole foods (not beholden to meat substitutes). Romero even has recipes for less well-known dishes like mofongo and arepas!
Summer may be over, but that doesn't mean it's time to put away the grill--or clay oven, iron cross, cauldron or griddle. In Seven Fires: Grilling the Argentine Way, world-famous Argentine chef Francis Mallman transports readers to the Andes Mountains and through text and photo demonstrates seven distinct grilling techniques and provides over a hundred recipes.
Delve into the complexity of Mexican flavors with Chicago chef and PBS personality Rick Bayless. In his IACP/Julia Child Cookbook Award-winning book Rick Bayless's Mexican Kitchen, the chef assists home cooks in constructing authentic dishes though the use of "building blocks"--sauces, pastes, salsas and corn tortillas--then creating whole dishes built on any of these elements.
If you're still hungry, continue on to our more thorough list of our recommended Latin American cookbooks.
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