The multi-award winning Norman Van Aken of the restaurant `Norman's' in Miami has done us a great service by providing us this survey of New World Latin cooking plus a precis of the many influences which have borne on these cuisines. The geographic range of the recipes is truly impressive. The countries or regions to which the recipes are attributed are:
Pan Caribbean 19 recipes
Pan Latin 19 recipes
Cuba 19 recipes
Mexico 18 recipes
Peru 14 recipes
Brazil 12 recipes
Colombia 9 recipes
Venezuela 8 recipes
Nicaragua 5 recipes
4 recipes: Argentina, Chile, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Trinidad
2 recipes: Ecuador, Guatemala, El Salvador
1 recipe: Bahamas, Bolivia, Central America, Dominica, Martinique, Panama, Uruguay
The book also includes several pantry, sauce, and mixed drink recipes not attributed to any specific region. The pantry recipes owe much to classic French technique, which Van Aken taught himself early in his career. The recipes for chicken and pork stock follow traditional methods, but they include a lot more ingredients than the French classics. Most notable additions are wine, mushrooms, tomatoes, and chiles.
The large number of recipes from Mexico and Cuba are expected for a chef working in Miami, especially with the acknowledgments he gives to Rick Bayless and Diana Kennedy, our leading experts on Mexican cuisine. The emphasis on Peru becomes obvious when you see the references to Nobu Matsuhisa, who worked for many years in Peru and who has popularized many dishes based on Peruvian themes and foodstuffs.
The sizable body of congratulatory blurbs on the back cover of the book from the likes of Nobu, Mario Batali, Charlie Trotter, Todd English, and Emeril Lagasse attest to the quality of his cooking and, more importantly for you the reader, the quality of his researches into this `New World Cuisine'. I think the most important quality of the book is not culinary invention. Van Aken is not taking any credit for creating these recipes. His accomplishment is in the collecting and exposition of these recipes and their most important ingredients for us.
Van Aken is especially wise to not call this Latin American cuisine, as he makes it clear that the cuisine of the lands south of the Rio Grande have been created by an amalgam of Native American, Spanish, East Indian, Chinese, Japanese, African, Portuguese, Italian, and Polynesian influences. While Van Aken claims credit for inventing the phrase `fusion cuisine' it is plain that `fusion cuisine' has been going on in the New World since South American (Polynesian?) mariners carried plants from Pacific Islands to South America's Pacific coast. This activity expanded with a vengeance in both the old and new worlds as American foods such as corn, tomatoes, potatoes, and chiles were taken to both Europe and Asia and Old World foods came to America. For example, Italian and Sechuzen cuisines changed dramatically with the introduction of tomatoes and chiles respectively.
One of Van Aken's contributions to these recipes is to replace original peanut or palm oils with canola or grape seed oil. It's interesting to note that deep frying was never done in pre-Columbian America, as the natives, even the Aztecs and the Incas did not refine oils in sufficient quantities to use it as a deep frying medium. Another addition by Van Aken is wine and beer pairings with recipes. It is possible that he also contributed to the use of European fortified wines in recipes, although that may very easily be a Portuguese addition.
The background information on major ingredients and major influences is almost worth the price of admission. This is not a scholarly book, a thorough study of one or a few cuisines in the style of Diana Kennedy on Mexico or Paula Wolfert on Morocco. But its contents have much of the authority of a scholarly work. It is a sampling of recipes from many lands which makes this a much more valuable book to the typical foodie. All the recipes are first rate stuff, presented by a passionate and talented chef.
I highly recommend this book as an introduction to the cuisines of the Caribbean and of South America. The bibliography will also offer many sources of additional information on this cuisine. This book is worthy of Norman's colleagues' praise.
