Hot Sour Salty Sweet: A Culinary Journey Through Southeast Asia

Additional Hot Sour Salty Sweet: A Culinary Journey Through Southeast Asia Information

Award-winning authors Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid followed the river south, as it flows through the mountain gorges of southern China, to Burma and into Laos and Thailand. For a while the right bank of the river is in Thailand, but then it becomes solely Lao on its way to Cambodia. Only after three thousand miles does it finally enter Vietnam and then the South China Sea.

It was during their travels that Alford and Duguid—who ate traditional foods in villages and small towns and learned techniques and ingredients from cooks and market vendors—came to realize that the local cuisines, like those of the Mediterranean, share a distinctive culinary approach: Each cuisine balances, with grace and style, the regional flavor quartet of hot, sour, salty, and sweet. This book, aptly titled, is the result of their journeys.

Like Alford and Duguid's two previous works, Flatbreads and Flavors ("a certifiable publishing event" —Vogue) and Seductions of Rice ("simply stunning"—The New York Times), this book is a glorious combination of travel and taste, presenting enticing recipes in "an odyssey rich in travel anecdote" (National Geographic Traveler).

The book's more than 175 recipes for spicy salsas, welcoming soups, grilled meat salads, and exotic desserts are accompanied by evocative stories about places and people. The recipes and stories are gorgeously illustrated throughout with more than 150 full-color food and travel photographs.

In each chapter, from Salsas to Street Foods, Noodles to Desserts, dishes from different cuisines within the region appear side by side: A hearty Lao chicken soup is next to a Vietnamese ginger-chicken soup; a Thai vegetable stir-fry comes after spicy stir-fried potatoes from southwest China.

The book invites a flexible approach to cooking and eating, for dishes from different places can be happily served and eaten together: Thai Grilled Chicken with Hot and Sweet Dipping Sauce pairs beautifully with Vietnamese Green Papaya Salad and Lao sticky rice.

North Americans have come to love Southeast Asian food for its bright, fresh flavors. But beyond the dishes themselves, one of the most attractive aspects of Southeast Asian food is the life that surrounds it. In Southeast Asia, people eat for joy. The palate is wildly eclectic, proudly unrestrained. In Hot, Sour, Salty, Sweet, at last this great culinary region is celebrated with all the passion, color, and life that it deserves.

What Customers Say About Hot Sour Salty Sweet: A Culinary Journey Through Southeast Asia:

As all the Alford-Daguid collaborative efforts, the book defies easy categorization--cookbook, travelogue, photojournalism. Recipes are authentic and delicious. Leafing through the book is almost as deeply satisfying as eating the meals.

Food is my biggest hobby. I've been cooking for 15 years, and this is one of my favorite books. Beautiful photos, interesting narrative, and most importantly, solid recipes. Highly recommended for learning about SE Asian food/cooking/culture.

But this book lays it all out in such a way, and has such clear instructions that, in combination with an asian grocery store, it is foolproof. This was given to me by a good friend. I love to cook, and over the years have struggled with South East asian, Thai in particular, cooking. As a bonus, the travelogues and side bars are wonderfully interesting. Even if you don't cook, you will be taken away on a wonderful culinary journey through the region.

For the huge irregular book format of the book there are not that many recipes. Purchased for Cambodian recipes, having a hard time finding a Cambodian cookbook, this was the best bet = and it does have dishes for things we ate like Khmer soup, pumpkin curry and a similar version to Amok. Pondering on whether to return book or not. Compare for example "the Cook's Book" for the same heft has 685 recipes. (oddly i have the amok recipe in my New York Cookbook, a favorite standby) But as an avid photographer and traveler and cookbook collector, i have to say the travel writing is amateurish, the photos are not great (a mini picture of Angkor wat and i don't think i saw many pictures of places i'd been to in thailand or vietnam - just street scenes - what kind of travelogue is this). and never seem to match the right page (you would think there would be a photo of what you are reading about next to it) and the pictures of dishes are far and few between. Compare with Nobu Now for the difference in food photography capability.if many of these reviews didn't say the recipes are good they are part of daily repetoire, i'm tempted to return. it really is way to big for the content inside.

Thailand alone has required a 675 page book (`Thai Food') from David Thompson. While its focus is the culinary world of Southeast Asia, the text is far more anecdotal and personal than it is analytical. Its biggest problem is its relatively high list price ($45) for no more than average culinary content. On the other hand, I give the authors extra credit for providing a recipe for fresh, homemade rice noodles.

And, since the authors have just come out with a new book with similar heft, price, and subject, I figured it was time to attend to reviewing this volume.Aside from the price, I have one major problem with this book. `Hot Sour Salty Sweet' by husband and wife team, Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid is a troublesome book to evaluate. And, on the ingredients of Asia, you can get a far more comprehensive coverage in Bruce Cost's classic `Asian Ingredients'.In contrast, the books on Italy's regions all include great insights on the origins of culinary mores in these relatively small venues. All refer to the authors' earlier book on flatbreads and most come from general publications such as `The New York Times' and `The Globe and Mail'.I can really appreciate all the nice things other reviewers have said about this book, as I was impressed with it when I first looked at it 300 cookbook recipes ago. After reviewing many excellent books on the regional cooking of France, Italy, and other parts of the Mediterranean, I really find this book very thin on substance.

And, while Arthur Schwartz' book on Naples may include 50 detailed recipes for pasta in Campania, this book gives but 10 for a much larger region. Since then, I find it just a bit too light for the price.Recommended as a good coffee table book. Much of that inflated price is based on its oversized heft and the fact that it mixes cooking content with comments on culinary regionalism and pure travelogue in text and pictures.I confess that this is a very attractive book, very similar in appearance to their later volume, `Home Baking' that I enjoyed and very favorably reviewed. You may have a bit of a problem wrangling this big book around your kitchen and making a decent photocopy of the oversized page, but it is still a good recipe.If you have no interest whatsoever in acquiring any OTHER books on Southeast Asian cuisine and you have the budget for it, this is a very nice book. Part of the problem for me may be that it tries to cover far too great an area.

In 324 pages of material, they cover Thailand, Burma, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, and Yunnan Province of China. I just think that if you are serious about learning about food, you look for books with greater depth and less fluff.I find it very interesting that none of the blurbs on the back of the book refer to this volume and none are from culinary notables. Look for it at a steep discount.