California Rancho Cooking: Mexican and Californian Recipes
California cuisine--with its goat cheese, arugula, and free-range  chickens--took the culinary world by storm in the 1980s and '90s, but as  Jacqueline Higuera McMahan shows us, "Rancho cooking" may be the original  California cuisine. Descended from early Spanish settlers--known as the  Californios--McMahan comes from a culinary tradition that spans backward  through the gold rush and the missions to Mexico and Spain. InRancho Cookingshe tells the tale of the Californios' cuisine, and  of her own family, through stories and recipes handed down for    generations."Chiles are in our blood, my grandmother told me," McMahan writes, "I  pictured rivers of dark chile flowing in our veins." That river of chiles  flows not only in the veins of the Higueras, but throughout the history of  cooking in California. Beginning with the Spaniards who, by necessity,  borrowed culinary traditions from everyone from the Moors to the Indians,  and merging with Mexican food drawn from Aztec and other Indian culinary  traditions, Rancho cooking evolved as it was carried north through the  Spanish territories in California. The Spanish brought with them their  favorite foods--tomatoes, squash, pumpkins, corn, and of course chiles, to  name a few--and the settlers perfected the art of barbecuing, which was so  well suited to their outdoor lifestyle.What will strike readers first about this book is that the cooking  represented is a far cry from the typical Mexican fare we're used to. This  food has a sophistication far beyond smashed beans and rice. Olives, figs,  fresh herbs, squash blossoms, and pumpkins appear with surprising  regularity, and olive oil, not lard, is the fat of choice for cooking. Of  course you'll also find many of the dishes that we think of as standard  Mexican fare--enchiladas, tamales, quesadillas--but all have a distinctly  Rancho touch. Enchiladas are filled with seafood and napped with a velvety  tomato-chipotle sauce, quesadillas are stuffed with squash blossoms andepazoteleaves, and tamale dough gets extra flavor from olive oil in addition to the usual lard.As much a history book as a cookbook,Rancho Cookingbelongs on the  shelf of anyone who calls him- or herself a connoisseur of California  cuisine.--Robin Donovan--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.