The Latin Road Home: Savoring the Foods of Ecuador, Spain, Cuba, Mexico and Peru

by Jose Garces

Overview

Spanning cultures and continents, The Latin Road Home is a look back at the many food traditions that have shaped Garces’ culinary life. Beginning in Ecuador, ancestral home to his family and the foods nearest to his heart, Garces celebrates the traditional recipes of his childhood. The book makes its way through Spain, Cuba, Mexico, and Peru—extraordinary cuisines Garces has come to know, love, and master. He shares not only recipes, but colorful memories of local cultures and insights into their unique ingredients and techniques. The cookbook features over 100 recipes tailored to the home cook, accompanied by over 100 food and travel photographs that truly immerse the reader. Each chapter features a different country with menus highlighting Garces’ takes on both mainstays of home cooking and popular street foods. The book is full of recipes for bright salads and ceviches, comforting stews, hearty beans, and tender braised meats. When a celebratory feast is in order, Jose's party menus are full of hors d'oeuvres, cocktails, and impressive fare for a kind of night where cooking becomes a part of the festivities. Recipes are titled in both English and Spanish and stay true to their roots. Soulful, vibrant Latin dishes such as these will surely become the home-cooked staples of readers’ kitchens: Green Plantain Empanadas with Braised Chicken, Grilled Spring Onions with Almond Sauce, Fried Stuffed Chiles, Braised Beef Stew with Red Beans, Pan-Roasted Shrimp with Tequila, and Salt-Baked Fish with Ginger Oil. From the gastronomic powerhouse that is Spain to the seafood-rich shores of fiery Peru, Garces showcases the heart of Latin cooking with dishes that are at once sophisticated and elemental.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781891105494
Publisher:	Lake Isle Press
Publication date:	10/08/2012
Pages:	384
Sales rank:	135,795
Product dimensions:	8.50(w) x 10.10(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Since opening his first restaurant, Amada, in 2005, Chef Jose Garces has emerged as one of the nation’s most gifted young chefs, winning the James Beard Foundation’s prestigious “Best Chef Mid-Atlantic” award in 2009. Garces authored his first cookbook in 2008: Latin Evolution (Lake Isle Press), strikingly photographed and focused on the future of Latin cuisine. In 2010, Garces won Food Network’s The Next Iron Chef, making him one of a few chefs in the country to hold the prestigious title of Iron Chef America. His eponymous Garces Group has opened fifteen restaurants nationwide, in cities such as Philadelphia, Chicago, Palm Springs, Arizona, and Atlantic City. Garces lives in Philadelphia with his wife and two children.

What People are Saying About This

Jose Andres

With this exciting book, home cooks can join Jose, one of America's most exciting chefs, on his journey back and forth across the Atlantic, cooking some of the best dishes from the Old World and New.

Masaharu Morimoto

The Latin Road Home is Chef Garces' passionate, personal introduction to Latin cuisine. His love of unpretentious home cooking and his superb culinary techniques are beautifully integrated in each recipe.

Editorial Reviews

Jose Garces' The Latin Road Home might be regarded as an autobiography in recipes. The Ecuadorian American chef (and Iron Chef season two winner) honors his cuisines that have most shaped him. In chapters arranged by country, he presents four complete dinner menus that showcase traditional dishes from that nation. The last menu in each illustrated chapter projects a more elaborate meal, including multiple courses, a cocktail, and dessert. (P.S. Chef Masaharu Marimoto noted that Garces' "love of unpretentious home cooking and superb culinary technique are beautifully integrated in each recipe.")

The Latin road that Garces has laid out in the U.S. is marked by 15 restaurants across 5 cities, from Philadelphia to Palm Springs. But the road he navigates in this, his second cookbook (after Latin Evolution), is one of time travel and cultural influences. A mix of culinary memories and flavorful, inspired recipes, each chapter focuses on a particular country. He begins with his grandmother's homeland, Ecuador, and the foods he knew as a child such as fried pork, and warm hominy salad. Then he is off to Spain, where he was a rookie cook on the Costa del Sol, offering seafood dishes like Spanish octopus with potato confit. Next comes Cuba, his wife's birthright, and a ropa vieja with red beans, prepared in a pressure cooker with plenty of onion and peppers. His ties to Mexico and Peru are perhaps a bit less personal, but the recipes no less heartfelt. A Mexican cactus salad balances queso fresco with pickled jalapenos. A Peruvian purple punch gets its color from dried purple corn and its kick from Peruvian brandy. There are also quick info pages for each of the countries, painting brief pictures of their various histories, populations, and primary foodstuffs. And complementing each menu-based grouping of recipes, there are classic essentials, such as the empanada and the cubano sandwich. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

With this exciting book, home cooks can join Jose, one of America's most exciting chefs, on his journey back and forth across the Atlantic, cooking some of the best dishes from the Old World and New.

Jose Andres

The Latin Road Home is Chef Garces' passionate, personal introduction to Latin cuisine. His love of unpretentious home cooking and his superb culinary techniques are beautifully integrated in each recipe.

Chef Masaharu Morimoto

This beauty of a book is Philadelphia-based chef Jose Garces's love letter to Latin home cooking. Organized into five lavishly photographed chapters-one each for Ecuador (Garces's ancestral homeland), Spain, Cuba, Mexico, and Peru-the book explores the foods that have nourished Garces and shaped his growth as a chef. In each chapter, Garces o?ffers four dinner menus, featuring tempting authentic regional dishes such as Ecuadorian Chicken and Rice Soup with Achiote, and Seafood Vermicelli Paella (yes, paella made with pasta, not rice) from Spain's Costa del Sol. He also includes extra recipes for "essentials" of each cuisine like Ecuadorian empanadas, sweet Cuban-style espresso, and hearty Mexican corn tamales. Throughout the book, Garces remains true to his mission of celebrating home cooking, and the recipes are consistently doable and unpretentious. It's filled with the sort of comforting family-friendly roasts, stews, and salads that we all love-and it's a great read to boot.

Fine Cooking, October 2012 - Kimberly Masibay

Garces' recipes are his take on the classics, whether it's a twist added by his relatives or an upscale reinvention for one of his restaurants. The book is also beautiful, with photography that stands out as a refreshing pop of color (and vegetables) in a season dominated by food photography in muted shades of brown.

Eater, October 2012 - Paula Forbes

The cookbook serves as a Latin cooking primer, paying homage to the countries where Garces found his cooking soul: his ancestral home of Ecuador, as well as Spain, Cuba, Mexico, and Peru. Garces traveled extensively through those countries, absorbing then interpreting their cuisines for the restaurants he opened here.

Philadelphia Inquirer, October 5, 2012 - Maureen Fitzgerald