Art of South American Cooking

From Library Journal
Mexican and Caribbean cooking has received a lot of attention recently, but the cuisines of South America have been unfairly overlooked. This ambitious volume by the chef of New York's Ballroom Restaurant, who died last month, is not only a welcome addition but also an important work. Rojas-Lombardi includes hundreds of recipes from his homeland Peru and the other South American countries: not just ceviche, but 12 different types, unusual tamales filled with duck or quinoa, empanadas both sweet and savory, and many more intriguing dishes from Chilean Clam Chowder to Tomatoes Posing as Strawberries. The recipes are well written, the text informative and readable. Highly recommended. HomeStyle alternate.Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews
Squid ceviche, wild-turkey escabŠche with figs, seafood tamale, quinoa chowder, tomatillo gazpacho, rabbit in chocolate sauce, a roundly flavored sweet pepper-dried chili-apple-hazelnut sauce to serve on potatoes, and a whole string of wonderful potato dishes: These are a few of the splendid, spicy, South American dishes that Peruvian born-and-raised Rojas-Lombardi, now a prominent New York chef and food authority, makes available in this genuine contribution to our culinary repertoire. True, some of the items used might be unavailable in many North American areas, but many dishes (among them a spicy marinated pork roast) achieve a distinctive effect without exotic ingredients. And Rojas-Lombardi's introduction, ranging from the Incas' ingenious irrigation methods to today's 30-some potato varieties and corn kernels the size of cherry tomatoes, provides an informative overview in a very few lively pages. -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Book Description
As diverse as its history and as varied as the countries that make up the continent, South American cooking combines the agricultural greatness of the pre-Columbian native peoples--responsible for cultivating the potato, tomato, chile pepper, and corn--with the culinary traditions of later arrivals from Spain, Portugal, the west coast of Africa, Italy, and elsewhere to create a delicious cuisine of dimension and depth.Felipe Rojas-Lombardi presents a spectacular array of both innovative and traditional recipes. He begins each chapter with a discussion of how that particular food fits into the fabric of the meal. The more than 250 recipes include ceviches, escabeches, empanadas, tamales, soups, seafood, poultry, meat, vegetables and grains, and desserts; and finally there is a chapter on such basics as how to prepare eggless mayonnaise and corn beer, and how to clean squid. An enormously talented cook and teacher, Felipe brings North Americans the culinary diversity and great food of the continent to our south.

About the Author
Felipe Rojas-Lombardi, a native of a Peru, is the owner and chef of The Ballroom restaurant in New York City. He is the author of Soup, Beautiful Soup.


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Mexican and Caribbean cooking has received a lot of attention recently, but the cuisines of South America have been unfairly overlooked. This ambitious volume by the chef of New York's Ballroom Restaurant, who died last month, is not only a welcome addition but also an important work. Rojas-Lombardi includes hundreds of recipes from his homeland Peru and the other South American countries: not just ceviche, but 12 different types, unusual tamales filled with duck or quinoa, empanadas both sweet and savory, and many more intriguing dishes from Chilean Clam Chowder to Tomatoes Posing as Strawberries. The recipes are well written, the text informative and readable. Highly recommended. HomeStyle alternate.


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