nwasianweekly.com
Dec. 9, 2006

By Pat Tanumihardja
For the Northwest Asian Weekly

A cookbook will surely please anyone on your holiday list who takes pleasure in preparing good things to eat. Despite the profusion of cookbooks out there crafted by celebrity chefs and other famous food personalities, I vote for these three remarkable Asian cookbooks that have roots in home cooking and can even double up as a memoir for bedside reading.

Into the Vietnamese Kitchen: Treasured Foodways, Modern Flavors, by Andrea Nguyen (Ten Speed Press, $35)

When Andrea Nguyen and her family were airlifted out of Saigon in 1975, her mother brought along with her, safely stashed amidst her best jewelry and important photos, an orange notebook filled with handwritten recipes. This notebook became a means for the author’s family to preserve its heritage in a new country. Thirty years later, Nguyen’s mother gifted the notebook to her and Into the Vietnamese Kitchen was born.

In this landmark volume of more than 175 classic Vietnamese recipes — the first comprehensive Vietnamese cookbook in English — Nguyen writes passionately about the history and fundamentals of her native cuisine. The recipes span common Vietnamese favorites like pho bo (beef noodle soup), banh mi (baguette sandwich) and shrimp toasts, but also includes more elaborate dishes like Beef Flank and Ginger Simmered in Caramel Sauce. Nguyen also helps readers with the basics: how to identify key herbs like Thai basil and red perilla, and how to achieve “great wok-searing action.” She encourages the reader to personalize the cooking experience, and cooks at all levels will find inspiration in her thorough and easy-to-follow instructions.

Designed as an exploration of the breadth of Vietnamese cuisine, the book’s recipes and anecdotes are meant to offer “both cooking instructions and cultural insights into the lives of the Vietnamese, their history and their spirit.”

Memories of Philippine Kitchens: Stories and Recipes From Far and Near, by Amy Besa and Romy Dorotan (Stewart, Tabori & Chang, $35)

Filipino food has always remained secluded in the family kitchens of Filipino homes, passed down through the generations, native foods absorbing Spanish, Chinese and Indian influences along the way. Memories of Philippine Kitchens is the culmination of years of research by authors Amy Besa and Romy Dorotan as they embarked on a personal journey searching for the foods of their youth.

Both Philippines natives, Besa and Dorotan own and operate Cendrillon, a popular New York restaurant. In addition to showcasing more than 100 traditional recipes culled from private Filipino kitchens — from lumpia, pancit and kinilaw to adobo — the book also features Dorotan’s reinterpreted foods of the past, such as black rice paella, coffee-roasted fish and ube pan sal (purple yam breakfast rolls) with adobo flakes.

Besa believes “Filipino food, in order to be better understood and fully appreciated, had to be seen in the context of culture and history,” and the pair interviewed dozens of Filipinos both in the Philippines and abroad, and traveled extensively, collecting family stories, personal memories and historical tidbits. The result is a documentation of these living histories recorded through recipes and memories alongside rapidly disappearing dishes and culinary techniques.

My Grandmother’s Chinese Kitchen: 100 Family Recipes and Life Lessons, by Eileen Yin-Fei Lo (Home Hardback, $25.95)

One of the most important lessons award-winning cookbook author Eileen Yin-Fei Lo learned from her beloved grandmother, Ah Paw, was the truth that “cooking well for someone is giving love in a most tangible way.” Ah Paw’s kitchen in Guangdong province, outside Canton, China, was also where Lo learned “how to steam fish to the precise state of doneness” and “that vegetables should be chosen with at least the same care given to selecting in-laws.” Now a grandmother herself, Lo realizes the importance of imparting her culture and culinary heritage. What unfolds on the book’s pages is a collection of Ah Paw’s wisdom and 100 of her most treasured recipes.

Since rice is the center of a Chinese meal, it is only fitting that the first recipe is Perfect Cooked Rice — the first thing Lo learned to cook as a 4-year-old. Other recipes include traditional New Year dishes like Buddha’s Delight and Lotus Root Soup; Dragon and Phoenix Soup, which is served at weddings; and simple everyday dishes such as fried rice. For the uninitiated, all the essential techniques of the Chinese kitchen are represented, including stir-frying, steaming, roasting, stewing and braising, while an important glossary sits in the back.

As much a memoir as it is a cookbook, My Grandmother’s Kitchen is a wonderful compendium of family traditions and stories as well as timeless recipes.

Pat Tanumihardja can be reached at info@nwasianweekly.com.

Send correspondence to:
Northwest Asian Weekly • P.O. Box 3468 • Seattle • WA  98114
Tel: 206.223.5559 •  Fax: 206.223.0626 • Email: info@nwasianweekly.com
Please bookmark this site: www.nwasianweekly.com.