Customer Reviews

The Ecuador Cookbook: traditional vegetarian and seafood recipes (English and Spanish Edition)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
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2 star:		(1)
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Very well-written in English and Spanish. Provides concise instructions on how to prepare each delicious dish, and all ingredients are easy to find. What's most important: the writers (Buchanan and Franco) did a great job in using the same ingredients and preparation typical of the Ecuadorian Cuisine, exactly as my grandmother used to make. This book is perfect for the amateur gourmets and "coinosseurs" who enjoy good food (La buena mesa). My husband (not Ecuadorian, like me) has also fallen in love with Ecuadorian food. Smart man!... Please keep writing about Ecuadorian food!

I think this is an excellent cookbook for adding culture to your recipes and everyday eating. The illustrations are outstanding and create a mouth-watering desire to make the recipes. The recipes are rated from easy-to more time-consuming so its very helpful in planning. Bi-lingual recipes make it accessible to a variety of audiences and all of my Spanish-speaking friends here in San Diego. I'm improving my own Spanish from the side-by-side English/Spanish translation!

This was the first ecuadorian cookbook I got in contact with, after my first few weeks in South America with only rough Spanish. It's ok for the beginning and I really liked the drawnings which explain some preparing techniques, which are mostly unknown outside South America.
Now after a few years with an ecuadorian wife and a fantastic cooking mother-in-law this cookbook is a little bit disappointing. The description of some recipes even with the drawings is poor, confusing or missing some ingredients and lackcing the taste of the real (fantastic!) ecuadorian kitchen. Also the selection of recipes is not really typical or complete for Ecuador. And at the end the book is not really cheap for the given quality, thin, hand written, no photos, and because of the translation in English and Spanisch only half of it recipes.
One "real and complete" standard ecuadorian cookbook for example is "La cocina ecuatoriana - Paso a paso" from the spanish publisher Lexus, about 270 pages, ISBN 9972-625-61-3. A little bit expensive but really worth the price. But may be difficult to get outside Spain and Ecuador.