Dan Goldberg (3)

Dan Goldberg, Andrea Kuhn and Jody Eddy made three trips to Cuba to do the research, cooking and photos for their cookbook ¡Cuba! Recipes and Stories from the Cuban Kitchen. They planned to focus on the paladores, underground kitchens using bootleg ingredients. However, they were overrun by tourists, so they instead turned to family cooking in the kitchens of everyday Cubans. This decision adds an authenticity and informality to the food.

The photos are stunning, particularly the photos of the people, their homes and their kitchens. I also loved the photos of the sea. The photos of the food had this authenticity and simplicity that set them apart from most cookbooks. The only false notes came from the shots of several dishes on a table at once. They looked so much the same and so much on trend. You know what I mean, lots of food, spilled herbs, nuts, and deliberate messiness. It’s done over and over and over in book after book and generally works. However, that spilling the food all over the table messiness is an expression of wealth and privilege and strikes a false note when representing the humble foods of people who make an art form of making do.

This cookbook is as much coffee table book as recipe collection. Every page is a picture. The text is printed on photos, many of them pictures of painted walls with peeling paint. In others, the text wraps around elements of the photo. It makes an extraordinarily beautiful book. Visually, this book is a feast.

The recipes are good, focusing on simple ingredients that speak for themselves. There are few recipes that have long lists of ingredients. There is not the abundance to indulge in that sort of cooking, instead a bit of salt, oil and roasting bring out the natural simple flavors of good ingredients.

I found myself feeling irritated, however, with Eddy’s frequent mentions of the oppressive Castro regime without even once mentioning the embargo. This is fundamentally dishonest and discredits the excellent work that went into researching the recipes and taking the photos. She repeatedly talks about the limited access to ingredients, to meat, the poverty and privation, the need to repair, not replace and on and on and on. With all that discussion of deprivation without even once using the word embargo is a massive failure of honesty. Telling the truth about the effects of the embargo would not excuse or diminish the regime’s restrictions on liberty, political speech and on the arts. It damages the writer’s credibility and does a disservice to the people of Cuba and the readers.

I was provided a review copy of ¡Cuba! Recipes and Stories from the Cuban Kitchen by Blogging For Books.

¡Cuba! Recipes and Stories from the Cuban Kitchen at Ten Speed Press
Dan Goldberg at Goldberg Photography
Andrea Kuhn at Andrea Kuhn Style
Jody Eddy web site

★★★
http://tonstantweaderreviews.wordpress.com/2016/10/15/cuba-recipes-and-stories-f...… (mer)

Here is a book that could be worth getting just for the photography, but also a book about food and culture that happens to have recipes. The recipes in Cuba! come from the three authors’ trips to the island, what they learned there, and how they can be made here. Unless you’re a real foodie with a decent budget, most people would realistically find one or a few recipes here to actually make; although, because of the simplicity of the ingredients, there is a higher percentage of “doable” recipes than in other niche cookbooks. Whether you make one, none, or many of these recipes, having this kind of book lets us learn more about cuisine and culture that we might not otherwise know much about, and is colorful joy to look through.

Every page is completely dressed in a single photo – no “blank” spaces. The ten chapters have two pages of introductory blurbs, then a two-page overhead shot of a table that I would love to be at: bright and sunny, and lined out with Cuban food. Of the single-page photos, my favorite has to be the empanadas with a unique coloring – a purple, almost black – from squid ink. To the left of that, too, is a man wearing purple, a beret and an impressive mustache. Honorable mention also goes to a scene of a chicken flying through a home kitchen, where much of their field research was done.

They quote from Cubans they befriended, their personal stories, and the shared cultural history in that country. I didn’t realize how devastating the rations were in the 1990s – one of countless ways history has also shaped the “foodways” of Cuba. You can read about some of the legends, like how the Cubano sandwich really originated, and note the differences between Havana and the rest of the country.

The black market is everywhere, so this publication hopefully won’t endanger anyone, though it is notable that several people wanted to be fully or partly anonymous. (For humorous stories of contraband in Cuba, see Paquito D’Rivera’s “Letters to Yeyito.”) Provable heritage to regions of Spain, and even China, help some restaurants get by, but the Afro-Cuban majority does not have as many ties. The country is changeless and always changing at the same time.

Turning now to the main feature: the food. Cumin is one very common seasoning, sometimes called for as seeds. Oregano and garlic are there a lot too – easy enough. The food is not the spiciest, but when it is, habanero or jalapeno peppers can be used – or even just vinegar, to liven things up. That’s probably what I like best about this book, other than the design and imagery: the recipes are reasonable, with ingredients that shouldn’t be too hard to find, and instructions that cover all the bases. I also appreciate the practical tips on what to expect in preparation, and the substitutions or adjustments that can be made. They even plug the right occasions for certain plates, and refer to other recipes (with page numbers) for suggested pairings.

A few minor detractions here. Not every recipe is pictured, unless they’re somewhere in the table spread, and there are a few ambiguous ingredients, at least for a non-cook like me (what exactly is Mexican crema? which are the five spices in five-spice powder?) I’m sure anyone planning to make any of these recipes would be able to figure something out though. Just an observation, on some spelling: I don’t know why they spell ceviche “seviche” with an “s” – but that’s a dish I avoid anyway. There are Cuban versions of dishes found elsewhere, like tortilla and paella, and a good section on drinks. I enjoyed paging through “Cuba!” and look forward to trying something new soon!

Note: I received a free copy of this title through BloggingForBooks in exchange for an honest review. For more reviews, follow my blog at http://matt-stats.blogspot.com/… (mer)