Yucatán Cookbook: Recipes and Tales (Red Crane Cookbook Series) [Paperback]

Lyman Morton (Author), Michael O'Shaughnessy (Photographer)

Book Description

Series: Red Crane Cookbook Series | Publication Date: May 1, 1996

This book features a truly unique collection of over 190 recipes from the Yucatan region of Mexico, garnered from home kitchens and comedores of rural market towns. The author seeks the out-of-the-way eating establishments, and gives us an inside look into a variety of kitchens from Mayan families and ladino fisherman to American expatriates.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Morton moved from Los Angeles to Mexico's Yucatan peninsula in 1994, and he has devoted much of his time in that tropical environment to collecting indigenous recipes for the vast varieties of foods consumed by Yucatenos. Morton has kept his recipes simple, sometimes so much so that they may perplex North Americans unfamiliar with uniquely Mexican ingredients. But most of Morton's offerings are straightforward enough that most cooks should be able to cope. Carefully following the author's instructions, the truly adventuresome can cook up rare treats, but he also records many less formidable ideas for typically Mexican yet easy-to-prepare appetizers, stews, and savories. His digressive accounts of travels throughout the vastness of Mexico will ring true with many travelers. Mark Knoblauch

Review

This is not a cookbook for the person in a hurry. It is for the culinary artist, the closet anthropologist. -- Albuquerque Monthly

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Red Crane Books; 1st edition (May 1, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1878610511
• ISBN-13: 978-1878610515
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 8 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 1.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,453,596 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars The most slap-dash cookbook I've ever encountered., May 24, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Yucatán Cookbook: Recipes and Tales (Red Crane Cookbook Series) (Paperback)

Have you ever cooked a pig's ear? Would you like to know how? You won't learn from the Yucatan Cookbook, unless you can divine more from the words "boil in salted water until done. Chop" than I can. No advice for the poor unenelightened gringo as to how long that might take, or what attributes one might look for in a properly cooked pig's ear. This sort of sloppiness is rampant in this slap-dash cookbook. A recipe for cooking beans never mentions water. More than one recipe requires you to "Prepare chilies as in the recipe for iguana," which comes later in the book and for which no page number is given. In at least one place, a page number is supposed to be given, but it is listed as 00. (The editing, clearly, is as sloppy as the writing.) I confess that I have tried no recipes from this book, but that is because I am fairly confident they would not work. As a culinary travelogue of Mexico the book is (at times) interesting. But if you want a usable cookbook of Yucatan cuisine, I suggest you look elsewhere.