Cooking the Mexican Way: Revised and Expanded to Include New Low-Fat and Vegetarian Recipes (Easy Menu Ethnic Cookbooks)
Grade 5-8-These three titles are, for the most part, worthy  successors to the originals. (Cooking the East African Way was  originally called Cooking the African Way [Lerner, 1988].) Each  well-organized and well-written book now has a greater emphasis  on low-fat and vegetarian recipes. An introductory section  contains information on the culture, geography, food, holidays,  and festivals of the country or region. This is followed by  safety tips; glossaries of cooking utensils, terms, and special  ingredients; healthy and low-fat cooking tips; and a metric  conversion chart. A short discussion on eating customs is  followed by sample menus complete with shopping lists. The  clearly written recipes that follow are organized by type of  meal. Brief introductory notes, suggestions for substitute  ingredients, and cooking tips are included in many of the  recipes. Preparation time and serving size are indicated. The  books are visually appealing with many full-page, full-color  photographs (frequently adjacent to the recipes they refer to).  A couple of minor quibbles are the lack of pronunciation guides  (present in the previous editions) and the lack of a nutritional  breakdown for each recipe. Carole L. Albyn and Lois S. Webb's  The Multicultural Cookbook for Students (Oryx, 1993) would be a  good companion to any of these volumes. Fran Osseo-Asare's A  Good Soup Attracts Chairs (Pelican, 1993; o.p.) introduces West  African cuisine. These new titles will be useful for cultural  and heritage school projects as well as fun reads for  intermediate cooks.Janice Greenberg, formerly at Brooklyn  Public Library, NYCopyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.