Cookaholics Bulletin Board

So, two books:

Taco USA is a fairly comprehensive history of Mexican food in the United States. Gustavo Arellano is fairly passionately pro-Mexican, and his politics come across in the book (for example, he hates Rick Bayless), but if you want to know where tamales, hard-shell tacos, burritos and fajitas came from and how they got popular, this is your book; it's comprehensive without being terribly long or full of footnotes. Recommended for all amateur food historians.

For the wino in your life (hey Wino!), there's Unquenchable, a book about finding the best affordable wine. By "affordable", Natalie MacClean doesn't mean cheap: she's talking about wines which are underappreciated in the USA and as a result carry more reasonable prices than Barolo, Bordeaux and Cab Sauv do. The book covers Austrailian wines, Reisling, offbeat Italian wines, US states other than California, etc. Also, since the profession of wine critic is overwhelmingly male (like 95%) MacClean has some fun anecdotes about being one of the few women wine critics.

Out of curiosity, why does he hate Bayless?

Becky,

Well, he's grumpy in general about some Anglos who've gotten famous as spokespeople for Mexican food; he's ambivalent about Kennedy as well. However, the real reason appears to be a war of words he had with Bayless when Arellano was a writer for the Los Angeles times over the opening of Bayless' restaurant in LA.

So sorry, didn't see this calling me - the wine cellars are so damn full and chaotic I just had to make a dent in it all - - - unpacking/sipping, shelving/sipping, recording in data base/sipping, recycling boxes/sipping, selecting a suitable reward/sipping and finally sitting down to have a sip It's exhausting

Read Natalie's when it came out in 2011 but I'll read it again to refresh my sip-infused greying cells.

As for trashing Bayliss, that seems a pretty petty excuse and I am not compelled to read Arellano for that reason alone! Rick has done a helluva lot more for the appreciation of fine Mexican preparation and eating then the next 5, none of whom can I name, nor can most people, - COMBINED

I'll try to get back to Natalie's thoughts shortly; it will be interesting to see which wines are still around - what an incredibly vicious business...!

I now return you to your regular programming......................

Wino,

Every author has biases; Arellano's are just more transparent than most. His information on the history of the Mexican food industry is excellent, though; he has a more complete treatment than I've seen elsewhere. He mostly focuses on the low-end, though: Taco Bell, jarred salsa, street-corner tamale vendors, rather than on the gourmet.

A must-read: Fuchia Dunlop's Shark’s Fin and Sichuan Pepper, which is her memoir of becoming Britian's leading Chinese food gal. She's a really great writer, and the chapters covering her time as a grad student on special study in Sichuan are just wonderful. Full of humor and food. One warning, though, she really gets into all of the exotica Chinese folks eat, and I found that I had to skip some parts while reading over breakfast.

Thanks Fuzzy - I saw that book and was wondering what it was like. I figured it would be good, considering Dunlop's past books.

Dave,

It's terrific. I just read the chapter where she is touring Hunan during the SARS epidemic.

I'll have to look for this one. I quite like her recipes. Thanks!

--Lisa

I just started reading The Hundred-Foot Journey and am enjoying it alot. After finishing the book I'll rent the movie.
Nancy