Authentic Mexican: Regional Cooking from the Heart of Mexico

I live in Southern California surrounded by countless Mexican Restaurants of all levels of quality. Sadly most are sub par greasy cheese and dry rice joints. The recipes I have prepared in this book make the countless combo-number-whatever's pale in comparison. The author explains the reasons for this in the books beginning introduction. What consistently jumps at me in this book is the author's passion for Mexican cuisine. He hits at the heart of the real Mexican food culture and makes a clear distinction between Mexican "street food" (the informal more popular dishes prevalent across the US) and the traditional, authentic dishes of various regions in Mexico. There is a reason why the latter is not as popular in the US... it takes a lot of time and energy to create the elaborate authentic dishes. You need to find a restaurant that cares about quality dishes AND can pull it off in mass quantity... or you can make it yourself with some help from this book. The author also puts the real star ingredient at the forefront of these traditional delights - Chiles. Chiles of all shapes, sizes and levels of spiciness can be found in many of the recipes. These different dried and fresh chilies complete the complexity of the recipes and should not be substituted... if they aren't available where you live and you want to do it right then find a way... order it online! My favorite section has to be the Moles (pronounced like Mo-lay, not like the small mammal or skin growth). I love the history provided at the beginning of this chapter. I have personally made the Mole Verde and Mole Rojo multiple times. I have made the Mole Poblano only once... it takes about 6 hours... very good and worth it once in a while. If you want a mole that appeals to a wide range of palates then the Mole Verde is the way to go. This book is definitely not a be all end all for authentic Mexican cuisine but it definitely is an essential book for those people who are passionate about good authentic Mexican dishes... or simply food in general.

`Authentic Mexican' by notable Chicago chef and Mexican cuisine expert, Rick Bayless and wife Deann Groen Bayless is easily one of the very best books on basic Mexican cuisine. For a subject which is so big that Bayless has devoted at least three other books to it, not to mention the five thick volumes from fellow Mexico culinarian Diana Kennedy, it is hard to describe this as a comprehensive treatment of Mexican cuisine, as it weights in at only 380 pages, compared to the over 450 pages Penelope Casas devotes to much smaller Spain and 480 pages Diana Kochilas devotes to even smaller Greece. But don't let any of this put you off. This is, I am certain, one of the very best sources of information on true Mexican food for us gringos. I am almost certain that Bayless' coverage of Mexico is much better for the state of Oaxaca than for many other regions. I see this name pop up far more than any others and I have read that this is one of his favorite parts of Mexico. The stated impetus to Bayless' writing this book lies in the fact that in spite of the close contact between Mexico and the United States, Mexican food in the US has undergone the same kind of metamorphosis as we find in Italian-American food. It is an interesting exercise to highlight what is distinctive about Mexican cooking to cite the differences between Mexican and Spanish cuisines. While Spanish cuisine is all about olives and grapes, neither of these two products transplanted well to Mexico. Thus, Mexico did not acquire any taste for many of the things you can do with olive oil and vinegar. For these key tastes, they had animal fat and citrus juice. While Spain took to the tomato and the potato, they did not take to corn (maize). And, oddly, while Spain adopted sweet peppers like they were long lost sons, they did not take to the very picante hot chiles. And, while chocolate became very popular as a drink, it never pervaded Spanish dishes the way it runs through Mexican dishes. Many cookbooks of this type include the seemingly obligatory chapters on ingredients, techniques, and equipment. And, many times these sections are a waste of time in that they are incomplete, and someone not familiar with the subject will not know they are incomplete. None of this is true of Bayless' appendices on ingredients and tools. The depth of Bayless' treatment of important subjects such as chilis is just short of magnificent. Like every good cookbook on an ethnic cuisine, Bayless gives both the English and Spanish names for all dishes, and some naming contains little surprises. The very first recipe for `Salsa Mexicana' looks very familiar, yet I have never seen a recipe with that name before. It turns out that this is the authentic version of what we gringos call the `pico de gallo'. Practically every recipe contains several important cooks' notes on techniques, ingredients, and planning ahead. The book contains a chapter on practically every major subject in Mexican cuisine, including speci