The World in Your Kitchen: Vegetarian Recipes from Africa, Asia, and Latin America for Western Kitchens with Country Information and Food Facts

"The World in Your Kitchen" is an excellent cookbook for the vegan, vegetarian, or person on a budget. Troth Wells has easy recipes, and introduces readers to unfamiliar cuisines such as those of El Salvador, Tanzania, and Ecuador. It's not the usual vegetarian recipes from China, Mexico, and India. It's exotic without being intimidating. The recipes are delicious. There's a forward from Glenda Jackson,and two recipes from cinematic star Julie Christie. Recommended recipes- Ecuadorian potato pancakes with peanut sauce, Chilean bean & pumpkin stew (served atop spaghetti with fresh basil),Malaysian coconut curry with peanut sauce (from Julie Christie),Cambodian carrot stir fry (again,from Julie Christie),Tanzanian beans with coconut & cilantro,South African bean & tomato brede (stew),and beans with cocoa from Sierra Leone (think of an African mole) There are some minor drawbacks to the cookbook- 1)No pictures of recipes. 2)Use of British terms like courgette,aubergine,haricot beans,cowpeas,and "pancakes" for enchiladas. And British measurements can be confusing. 3)Some dubious politics blaming the World Bank for Zimbabwe's dire situation,and dubious philosophy from Peter Singer,who considers animals human,but is okay with euthanasia and infanticide. Again,these drawbacks are so minor they don't affect the rating. It's still a great cookbook. "The World in Your Kitchen" benefits fair trade. It's got excellent,delicious,easy recipes. It brings the world into the kitchen!

There are a number of things that I like about this cookbook, in addition to the tasty recipes themselves. First, it really does cover most of the world (the only countries left out are Europe and the US/Canada but I guess the author figured we already get a lot of those cookbooks). There are recipes from Bangladesh, Bahamas, Cambodia, Ghana, Syria, Kenya, Thailand, Guatemala, Brazil, Jamaica, Indonesia, Malaysia, Afganistan, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, El Salvador, Dominican Republic, Egypt, Haiti, Algeria, Peru, and I could go on. There is a nice intro section (35pgs) that talks about nutrition, where to get certain vitamins/minerals and some history of eating habits/the force of marketing/big money - how we got so hooked on eating animals.Then the recipes are broken out into the following sections:Starters & Snacks, Main Dishes, Side Dishes, Deserts & Drinks. Within each of these sections the recipes are broken out by continent (Africa, Asia, Middle East, Caribbean & Latin America) and the recipes themselves have a little intro that's stpecific to the food as well as the country its from and the native name for it.Color pictures and artwork is on every page and there's lots of interesting information - more than just a cookbook but short stories about world eating which is neat.The recipes are good from what I've tried so far. They're pretty straightforward and rely more on the flavors of the vegetables than on putting lots of different spices in there. The spices that it does call for are easily found (e.g. cumin, chili peppers, paprika, cilantro etc)Thumbs up on this gem - lots of fun to read as well as cook from.

The World in Your Kitchen is a window on basic recipes and foodways usually not included in higher brow cookbooks. Filled with vibrant photography including pictures of people growing harvesting, selling and preparing food, this cookbook presents a generous array of recipes, introduced by a brief history of the ingredients involved. Both metric and non metric measures are used in this combination geographic tour and culinary exploration.