These Latino Cookbooks Will Help Satisfy Your Cravings During Quarantine
These times are indeed unsettling but why stress over a deadly virus while on quarantine when you can spend the time learning how to cook (and definitely eat!) your favorite Latino dishes?
If you're particularly stuck somewhere far from home, these Latino cookbooks will remind you of some of your best childhood memories. While the lockdown period makes your feel like everything is a routine, do something different to break your monotonous quarantine life like cooking. As they put it, food feeds and nurtures our spirits.
If cooking and eating Latino food spark joy in you, you can find inspiration while planning your next meal during these difficult times with these four Latino cookbooks:
Coconuts and Collards: Recipes and Stories from Puerto Rico to the Deep South by Von Diaz
According to a recent article, Coconuts and Collards: Recipes and Stories from Puerto Rico to the Deep South is a beautiful cookbook in which Von Diaz combines traditional Puerto Rican recipes with the food traditions she's learned from living in the South. As to the authenticity of her food being questioned, Diaz preemptively fires back, "It's Puerto Rican because I made it." Coconuts and Collards is not just a cookbook but also a well-written exploration of Puerto Rican identity, displacement and migration.
Gran Cocina Latina, The Food of Latin America by Maricel E. Presilla
James Beard Award-winning cookbook Gran Cocina Latina by Maricel Presilla presents the reader with recipes from all around Latin America and the Caribbean. If you love spicy food, explore Presilla's Hot Pepper Pot section where you can learn recipes for different adobos, secos, sauces, picantes, sajtas, pipianes and moles.
Eris' Green Kitchen by Erisbelia Garriga
Puerto Rican Erisbelia Garriga is a cook from Aguadilla who also wrote Homestyle Puerto Rican Cooking: Traditional Recipes with a Modern Touch. In an attempt to create healthier versions of the dishes she grew up with and loved, Garriga confronts some health challenges using these recipes which she willingly shares to the world through a cookbook of Puerto Rican vegetarian food. These recipes call for less use of oil and salt, but don't worry, the food is still delicious!
"When preparing tostones for the photography session, the photographer said, Ay, Virgen. And I asked what the problem was. He replied, I have eaten almost all of them," Garriga writes.
For instance, her recipe for arroz con gandules includes coconut milk rich enough to replace any fat missed from the pork or bacon that is usually incorporated into the plate. If youre looking for a nutritious desert, Garriga recommends her avocado tiramisu. She shares, "The avocado cream is very delicate and lends a nice creamy flavor."
Guerilla Tacos by Wesley Avila and Richard Park
Cookbooks may also be a window to the author's life like how Wesley Avila share humorous stories about his love for food and his childhood in Guerilla Tacos.
"Julia Luz Alicia Ponce Avila, a.k.a Judy (my mom), worked most of her life at a factory for Avery Labels, an office supply manufacturer in Whittier. She was a hard worker, but when she was off work, she was like Tracy Turnblad's friend from Hairspray - into deep cuts and good food. And today, I'm just like her," he writes.
If you're a beginner cook, this cookbook helps introduce you to the wonderful world of cooking Latino food! The recipes here are delicious and simple enough to follow such as breakfast burrito with homemade chorizo and potato.
These Latino cookbooks are all available at Amazon so you won't have to stress about looking for them. Enjoy cooking!
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