Cocina de la Familia/the Family Kitchen : More Than 200 Authentic Recipes from Mexican-American Home Kitchens [Hardcover]

Marilyn Tausend (Author), Miguel Ravago (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 12, 1997

For three years, Marilyn Tausend traveled across the United States and Mexico, talking to hundreds of Mexican and Mexican-American cooks. With the help of chef Miguel Ravago, Tausend tells the tale of these cooks, all of whom have adapted the family dishes and traditions they remember to accommodate a life considerably different from the lives of their parents and grandparents. In these pages you will find the real food eaten every day by Mexican-American families, whether they live in cities such as Los Angeles or Chicago, the border towns of Texas and Arizona, the farming communities of the Pacific Northwest, or the isolated villages of New Mexico and Colorado. Now you can re-create the vibrant flavors and rustic textures of this remarkable cuisine in your own kitchen. Most of the recipes are quite simple, and the more complex dishes, like moles and tamales, can be made in stages. So take a savory expedition across borders and generations, and celebrate the spirit and flavor of the Mexican-American table with your own family.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Forget about the food you eat in what pass for Mexican restaurants in America; cleanse your palate, then come to this book. For Marilyn Tausend reveals the truth, the whole truth: within these pages are the foods eaten in Mexican American households throughout the United States. After years of traveling all over Mexico (she coauthored Mexico the Beautiful Cookbook), meeting the best Mexican cooks and cooking teachers, and years of leading cooking tours to Mexico to share all that she had discovered, Marilyn Tausend came home, back to the U.S.--back to her roots, which include a childhood spent shoulder-to-shoulder with Mexican fieldworkers on farmlands throughout the West, sharing their food.

Of the 13 million Americans who think of themselves as Mexican Americans, what, Tausend wondered, are they cooking at home today? And what she discovered as she crisscrossed the U.S. was that their roots run deep; these families stick together and trace their heritage back to the regions of Mexico from which they sprang, and the food tells the story. Mind you, a little Coca-Cola might get mixed in with a dish today, and canola oil might well be used instead of lard; after all, times change, and people change with them. But some elements, Tausend discovered, stay basically the same: a strong sense of family and a delight in bringing a big family together to eat. Crack open this book, use the recipes, and fill your house full of the love that comes from serving--and eating--real food. Let Marilyn Tausend show you how; you couldn't be in better hands.

From Library Journal

These two excellent new collections featuring contemporary Latin American cooking in the United States complement each other nicely. Tausend, coauthor with Susanna Palazuelos and others of Mexico the Beautiful (LJ 11/15/91), traveled throughout the country seeking the simple, traditional dishes that second- and third-generation Mexican Americans are cooking for everyday meals, recipes from their mothers and grandmothers. With Ravago, former chef/owner of Austin's Fonda San Miguel, she presents a broad selection of mouthwatering recipes, for both more familiar dishes such as Crispy Chicken Tacos and unusual ones like Pork and Purslane Stew. Tausend writes well, and headnotes include background on the various dishes as well as on the contributor. Highly recommended. Novas and Silva's more wide-ranging book draws on the diversity of Latin American cooking from 26 different nationalities in this country. Although the authors include homey, traditional dishes, they offer more sophisticated and elegant recipes from both home cooks and chefs, often in the cross-cultural nuevo style: New Southwestern Gnocchi di Patate, for example. The knowledgeable headnotes give culinary and cultural context for each recipe, often describing similar dishes from other Latin American countries, and more "exotic" ingredients are identified in glossary sections scattered throughout the book. Highly recommended. [There is also a Spanish-language edition, La Cocina Latinomericana en Los Estados Unidos, ISBN 0-679-44803-9.?Ed.]
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 416 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster (November 12, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0684818183
• ISBN-13: 978-0684818184
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 7.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #980,917 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Cocina de la Familia is a favorite of this Familia!, May 9, 2003

By 

Sherri Harris (Gold Canyon, AZ United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Cocina De La Familia: More Than 200 Authentic Recipes from Mexican-American Home Kitchens (Paperback)

Marilyn Tausend tells the real story of what Mexicans eat at home and what a delicious story it is! There is none of that goopy cheese-laden pseudo-food that passes for "Mexican" in inferior emporiums. What you have here is the real enchilada. As a Southern Californian "of a certain age", who is only Mexican by taste buds, I can attest to the authenticity of these recipes. As a retired teaching chef, I can promise great-tasting dishes from Cocina de la Familia. Because recipes are only a guide, most - if not all - of these dishes take kindly to alterations, substitutions and tinkering. Caldillo de Papas is wonderful made as directed. It is equally good made with large chunks of beef, additions of tomatillos, carrots and zucchini, topped with cilantro and a swirl of salsa fresca. Chilaquiles are usually made with leftover corn tortillas, but when I substituted some sliced tamales, sauced it with the Salsa Verde (pg. 215)our breakfast guests broke into cheers! This is a book to own yourself and a book to give to those you love -- especially if you want to eat well when visiting them. Bravo Marilyn. Please write Volume Two soon.

19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of my favorite cookbooks...tasty, interesting, easy!, October 12, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Cocina de la Familia/the Family Kitchen : More Than 200 Authentic Recipes from Mexican-American Home Kitchens (Hardcover)

I have always loved Mexican food. This is a particularly great book, because it describes favorite recipes of dozens of Mexican-American families throughout the United States. Unlike many recipes I have cooked from other Mexican cookbooks, the recipes in Cocina De La Familia are traditional recipes that have often been altered and simplified by families here in the U.S., using local and easier to get ingredients. I find these recipes easier to cook and shop for, but always tasty and authentic. I have cooked many of the recipes and loved nearly all of them. Thank You for this wonderful cookbook Ms. Tausend!

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Mexican cooking in the USA that makes sense to what I know.., July 10, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Cocina de la Familia/the Family Kitchen : More Than 200 Authentic Recipes from Mexican-American Home Kitchens (Hardcover)

I'm fascinated by this book. I cook Mexican food all the time- my inlaws are Mexican. I've taken notes of their legacy recipes along side of the actual cooking experiance with "Mom" many times and have recorded her technique and food. This book and the recipes ring true to what I know about Mexican cooking in the USA. I have many cook books about Mexican food that are "purist" in their approach and I read them for insight into technique and ingrediants. This "Cocina De La Familia" cookbook more accurately approaches what happens in my own kitchen when I modify a purist recipe. I've cooked several dishes from this book and plan to cook more... The history of lost and then regained ingrediants, over generations, in cooking Mexican food in the USA is a special treat.