Customer Reviews

A Taste of Guam

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I was extremely disappointed in this cookbook. There were far too many non-Chamorro dishes included, yet some staples of the island such as Tinaktak and cadon manuk were omitted.
By the way roskette traditionally should not be browned even on the edges.

First a little about myself. My mother who is Chammorro left guam with my dad who was a marine. I grew up enjoying many chammorro dishes but after I left home I eat mainly american foods.
The collection on recipes in the cookbook brought me back to my youth and now I enjoy these wonderfull dishes once again.
She has incorporated a great variety of recipes are easy to follow and the taste as I remember them.
Thank you very much Paula

I was given the amazing opportunity to review Paula A. Lujan Quinene's cookbook, "A Taste of Guam". I am always willing to try something new and being unfamiliar with cuisine from Guam, I had to do it!

[...]

"A Taste of Guam.....sharing Chamorro culture through food. This book includes the author's collection of recipes: Chamorro BBQ, Other Island Favorites, Guam Desserts, Mix of America, and a Treasure Chest of Sweets. A Taste of Guam has the best recipe for guyuria (fried cookies dusted with sugar syrup, roskette (cornstarch cookies) and latiya (pound cake with custard and cinnamon). Paula spent countless hours measuring the ingredients and testing the recipes! This is one island girl sharing ALL HER RECIPE secrets! This Guam cookbook is a must have for those in need of great Chamorro recipes that actually work! You'll also find an islander's list of places to eat on Guam, a list of the village fiestas, and a short time-line of Guam's history."

My thoughts:

The cookbook was very easy to follow and seemed to share Paula Quinene's personality and personal history with each recipe. She broke down each recipe in to sets, in order as needed. Which I found to be a huge help and made organizing very easy. She was great about explaining the cooking process. Also, she even made sure to explain how certain dishes are pronounced. For example, Buchi Buchi pronounced "bu-chee bu-chee). I also love that she included places to stop at in Guam if you were to ever visit, a short history of Guam, major Fiestas of their culture,

However, I felt that since the recipes are unique to other cultures there needed to be an explanation as to what certain ingredients are or even an acceptable substitute. For example, The recipe for "Ahu" called for Ahu meat. I googled it and couldn't find anything other then other recipes for "Ahu" and none of them mentioned Ahu meat, instead there were references for coconut meat. The other suggestion I have is how many servings the recipes make. Not a single recipe mentioned the servings (i.e. maybe it serves 4 or 8?). I understand that it must be difficult to come up with the amount as these are recipes in which are normally eyeballed and the author went through and remade the recipes and measured so that she may be able to write the cookbook. Since I had no idea what the serving sizes were, I had no idea how much to reduce everything by to cook for a smaller group. My pot of red rice was enough to feed an army.

With those few suggestions aside, I don't want anybody to be turned off of the book. It's a GREAT cookbook with unique recipes that will make for a fun night of Chamorro food. I made the "Red Rice" and it was DELICIOUS! I made "Fina'Dinne" which is a traditional sauce served with BBQ, egg rolls, white rice, etc., this is more of a taste preference but I didn't care for it. I might try it again but reduce the amount of vinegar. My neighbor had some and LOVED it. Once again, that is a taste preference. I made the Crab Kelaguen. Yum. I read the recipe, thought it weird but wanted to try it. Holy cow was it fabulous! I just ate it on it's own. So delicious. I lastly made Estufao. Oh my goodness. Delicious. If you like Filipino Adobo, you will LOVE Estufao. Fabulous. I am definitely going to try some of the recipes, especially the Chicken Kelaguan and some of the desserts. I am going to play around with trying to cut down the red rice until I get it to a smaller size without losing all of it's fabulous flavor.

I think Paula Lujan Quinene definitely has a market for this book and I have suggested it to other friends of mine who love to try different cuisines!

So I had debated purchasing this book as a gift for my boyfriend (a native Chamorro) and I finally ordered it along with some others as a gift. It seems to have plent of good recipes (I only skimmed it a couple times) and i'm sure he'll enjoy it. My only (yet biggest) peeve about this book? No photos. A cookbook with no photos? Maybe i'm stuck in the third grade but photos make many books better, especially specialized ones like this about some particular craft. Oh well, I'm sure he'll love it either way.

I lived on Guam years ago and loved the food. I had hoped that this book would help recreate some of those great dishes, particularly the spicy pumpkin empanadas.

Unfortunately, it was not to be. The author didn't follow the accepted (usual) format for writing recipes where ingredients are listed in the order they are used. The lack of any discernable format made reading, understanding, and following the recipe difficult.

In the directions for one recipe, I was instructed to add an ingredient that was not listed as one of the ingredients.

Directions were vague and difficult to follow.

More than half the book was composed of recipes that are not related to Guam, but were favorites of the author. I didn't buy this book for a recipe for pound cake.

It's a petty point, but the author felt that every sentence deserved an exclamation point.

Summary -- this book needed a good proofreader and someone who was experienced in writing recipes. Don't waste your money.

Filled with interesting recipes, I found 'A Taste of Guam' a good resource for expanding my culinary palette.
There were a few recipes that were a little too different for my tastes, but I found family members who enjoyed them immensely.

The easy to follow recipes were easily made, though some ingredients were difficult to come across in my town. Googling some of the ingredients proved to be a work in itself, and the substitutes were hard to fond, but it is a book not to be looked at wrongly. It is filled with unique recipes sure to please.

Guyuria (fried cookies dusted with sugar syrup) went down with rave reviews from my children and their friends.

Red Rice was welcomed by all who tried this for me. The quantity of the recipe was much more than I anticipated, but took it along to a dinner party and received compliments from most of the guests.

It is clear in the writing of the book that this culture and food are well loved by the author, Paula A. Lujan Quinene.

I had no idea what traditional food in Guam until I received this cookbook to review. In fact we ended up having a "Guam meal." For the purpose of this review I chose three dishes to try.

One of the dishes was "Red Rice" and used achote seeds. I had never heard of achote seeds before and I wasn't sure if I could get them but after a quick trip to a local whole foods market I was well on my way. The rice was delicious and the achote seeds, to my surprise, created a wonderful dark orange color. Of course the bacon drippings added that special, home-cooked taste.

The second dish I tried was "Golai Appan Aga" because we love plantains. What a wonderful treat. Cooking the plantains in coconut milk brought out the flavor and of course the touch of cinnamon added a pleasant flare.

The third dish I made was "Chicken Kelaguen." The original recipe called for 16 cups of chopped chicken but I chose to cut the recipe in half. It was just going to be too much for two people. The dish was tasty, a bit on the tart side because of the lemon, however it seemed the coconut gave it a good balance. And, we enjoyed the left-overs the next day.

I've decided I really like the unique taste of traditional dishes of Guam. Paula A. Lujan Quinene preserves her heritage by sharing her proven taste-tested recipes with us. I will be trying out some of the other recipes because I find them easy and most ingredients can be found in any pantry.

Taste of Guam is a great recipe book of the island favorites! I was born and raised on Guam and the island food was definitely one of the things I enjoyed and miss since I don't live there anymore. This book is well written, organized and easy to follow and I like Paula's personal commentary with each recipe. Also, I liked that she listed the places to eat on Guam, which I totally agree with. I would totally recommend this book for anyone who likes island food, or just food in general, but definitely for anyone who has been on Guam and wants a "Taste of Guam"!

This cookbook is great and has a little bit of everything. I showed this book to my coworkers and they loved it they said its easy to follow and also is great that the tools needed for the recipe is there which most cookbooks don't have. Very detailed! I love it !

I've always wanted to make "Guyuria" which is in this book. The recipe turned out
great. I've tried many of the other recipes also and they all turned out wonderfully. Paula did a superb job in creating this book.