Calling all gourmet chefs

[Hawkmoon]

Is anyone out there a gourmet chef ... or married to one?

My wife is from South America. Over Thanksgiving dinner with my brother and sister and their respective spouses, there arose a discussion of some neat sounding recipes from South American countries like Peru, Ecuador and Chile. Not the typical Mexican or Tex-Mex "throw in a few more jalapeños, Jorge" stuff, but recipes that might be more of interest to a European or refined American palate. The question then came up, where can these recipes be found?

So ... does anyone know if there are cookbooks here in the USA with recipes from countries such as Peru, Ecuador and Chile? If not, how/where could we find out if there might be some interest in having my wife write such a cookbook?

[Fly320s]

Sure, there are lots of South American cookbooks.  Google, baby.

Border's, Barnes & Noble's, etc, all have good cookbook sections.

[Standing Wolf]

I believe I'd start looking at the on-line book sites.

[vaskidmark]

Whatever you do, do not look up anything that Andrew Zimmern has to say about great food from South America.  The guniea pigs you get in the states have all been used in some mysterious lab experiments.  No telling what will start growing out of the side of your head after you try grilled lab experiment.

Seriously, there are some great recipies out there.  Also, it has gotten easier to obtain the proper ingredients instead of trying to figure out substitutions.  (Makes it harder at times to be really adamant about immigration reform, doesn't it?)

stay safe.

skidmark

[Hawkmoon]

(Makes it harder at times to be really adamant about immigration reform, doesn't it?)

Not in the least.

Dunno how my wife feels, but we had to jump through all the hoops in order for her to live here, there's no reason anyone else who wants to live here shouldn't have to jump through the same hoops.

[roo_ster]

Yep, not every Spanish-speaking country has cuisine that is a carbon coby of Mexico.  Most are much more variegated.

My favorites are Spanish food & Cuban food.  Yum, yum.

I think every S American country has its version of the tamale.  Some are larger, some are smaller, most have a different twist.  For some reason, I like "extrusion food" like tamales.

[Hawkmoon]

We spent part of this evening trolling the international cookbook aisles at Barnes & Noble. Lots and lots of cookbooks for French and Italian, Chinese and Mexican, several on Sushi (but not much on other Japanese ... don't the Japanese cook anything?), a surprising number of Irish cookbooks, one Spanish, one Portuguese, one Russian/Polish

And not a single cookbook covering Chile or any of the nearby South American countries. We took note of who publishes the cookbooks and will probably send out letters of inquiry. Should be interesting.

[Chuck Dye]

Try entering the different nations' names in the search utility of www.fooddownunder.com.

Don't discount Mexican cooking so quickly.  Most of what is seen in the U.S. is from the far north and thoroughly bastardized.  Check out the cookbooks by Diana Kennedy.  Regional Cooks of Mexico is especially good for what you want.

edit:  Uh, oh!  Sorry, the food down under I am accustomed to does not seem to be where I left it and there is no apparent link to the database I was referring you to.  This may be a bandwidth issue and it might be worthwhile checking the link again after 30 November.

[grislyatoms]

Might give you some ideas here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_American_cuisine

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuisine_of_Chile

[Hawkmoon]

Try entering the different nations' names in the search utility of www.fooddownunder.com.

Don't discount Mexican cooking so quickly.  Most of what is seen in the U.S. is from the far north and thoroughly bastardized.  Check out the cookbooks by Diana Kennedy.  Regional Cooks of Mexico is especially good for what you want.

edit:  Uh, oh!  Sorry, the food down under I am accustomed to does not seem to be where I left it and there is no apparent link to the database I was referring you to.  This may be a bandwidth issue and it might be worthwhile checking the link again after 30 November.

Thanks, Chuck, but I believe you're missing the point. We are not interested in variations of Mexican food. We are interested in assessing the market potential for a cookbook covering what appears to be a not-well-represented portion of SOUTH America. We're not looking to buy a cookbook, we want to see if it's potentially worthwhile writing one.

[Chuck Dye]

SAT,Chief, I did misread.

I have three dozen or more cookbooks but have never bought one for myself (family tradition drops a  NY Times Cookbook and Peugeot salt and pepper mills on newlyweds.)  Are you planning to give them away? :D

On a more serious note, no, I would not buy any cookbook until I have flipped through it and found a high percentage of the recipes make me want to try them.  I strongly suspect that publishers will say much the same thing.  Two books I get a fair bit of use from are The Complete Asian Cookbook and The Complete Middle Eastern Cookbook from McGraw-Hill.  The mile-wide-inch-deep approach works well for every cook in my family, though everyone admits to crosschecking other cookbooks.  Note the extensive glossaries and the resource lists

[MillCreek]

I am embarassed to admit that I have about 400 cookbooks.

[Hawkmoon]

I am embarassed to admit that I have about 400 cookbooks.

So how many of them cover recipes from Chile, Peru and Ecuador?

[MillCreek]

Absolutely none.  If you go to Jessica's biscuit at www.ecookbooks.com, you will find relatively few cookbooks covering that area of the world.  As far as I know, Jessica's is the largest Internet cookbook vendor; so if they don't have it, I suspect that few others would.

[Racehorse]

Don't waste your time on an Argentine cookbook. It's basically Italian food with a few German and Spanish variations (empanadas and some of the pastries). Just with more beef. Lots of beef. Beef out your ears. Whole sides of beef.

Did I mention the beef?

[Hawkmoon]

Don't waste your time on an Argentine cookbook. It's basically Italian food with a few German and Spanish variations (empanadas and some of the pastries). Just with more beef. Lots of beef. Beef out your ears. Whole sides of beef.

Did I mention the beef?

Do they have any recipes for meat of cow?

[Hawkmoon]

Absolutely none.  If you go to Jessica's biscuit at www.ecookbooks.com, you will find relatively few cookbooks covering that area of the world.  As far as I know, Jessica's is the largest Internet cookbook vendor; so if they don't have it, I suspect that few others would.

Many thanks (or perhaps that should be "Muchas gracias" in this case). That's encouraging (I think ... unless it means nobody gives a rat's posterior for recipes from that part of the firmament).

[MillCreek]

Amazon search on Peruvian cookbooks:

http://www.amazon.com/s/qid=1259549230/ref=sr_nr_seeall_2?ie=UTF8&rs=&keywords=peru%20cookbook&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3Aperu%20cookbook%2Ci%3Astripbooks

Amazon search on Chilean cookbooks:

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=chile+cookbook&x=0&y=0

Amazon search on Ecuadorian cookbooks:

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=ecuador+cookbook&x=0&y=0

I freely admit that I have never been to any of these countries, but have done a fair amount of foreign travel.  I often find cookbooks in the language of the country and published by local printers or publishers and available only in-country.  So I wonder if most cookbooks dealing with this area of the world are published in Spanish and are only generally available in the local area.

[Racehorse]

Do they have any recipes for meat of cow?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asado

That is probably the most common preparation. All they put on the meat is usually salt. Sometimes pepper. But it's extremely tasty. The chimichurri sauce mentioned is also very good.

[Dannyboy]

I just got back from 10 days in Peru last week.  The food is really really good.  The beer, not so much.  I hope you like rice and potatoes.  They eat them at pretty much every meal in one fashion or another.  I don't do seafood, so the ceviche was out but I did have something called mansiche.  Basically, it's a chicken and rice thing but it was friggin awesome.

[jackdanson]

I love gourmet spanish food, the meximelt is great.  

[PTK]

I'm afraid that you're going to turn up very little, as I did trying to find proper Ethiopian cookbooks.

[Hawkmoon]

I'm afraid that you're going to turn up very little, as I did trying to find proper Ethiopian cookbooks.

You're missing the point, too. If there aren't any to be had, then if my wife writes one it should be comparatively easy to market. If there were 50 or 100 cookbooks for Chilean or Peruvian cuisine, publishers probably wouldn't exactly be lining up for the chance to do one more.

[41magsnub]

as I did trying to find proper Ethiopian cookbooks.

I'm guessing there is a joke in that somewhere....   

[PTK]

Yes. I've heard them all. Hilarious.

Anyway, Ethiopian cooking is amazingly diverse - everything from food that seems that it could've come out of the American south-west to Indian-like food, to dishes reminding one of Russia. It's really odd, and generally delicious.