Perú. Gastronomia

Phaidon Global Cookbooks

by Gastón Acurio

La biblia definitiva de la cocina casera peruana de la mano de uno de sus más famosos y populares chefs, el gran Gastón Acurio.

Gastón Acurio es una celebridad nacional con más de 735.000 seguidores en Twitter y más de 1 millón de amigos en Facebook. Tiene su propio programa en televisión y fans que quieren verle convertido en Presidente del país!

Presenta por primera vez más de 500 recetas caseras peruanas a una audiencia mundial: desde la quínoa al ceviche, del amaranto sin gluten al ají amarillo la comida peruana es sana y usa de manera original ingredientes únicos.

Genres: Cookbooks, Cooking, Food, Nonfiction, Food and Drink, Reference

432 pages, Hardcover

First published May 5, 2015

Reviews

[Vaelkyrja · Rating 4 out of 5]

Peruvian food is SUCH. GOOD. FOOD. Seriously, try it!

This cookbook is an amazing reference, and for that, it receives 4 stars. It's full of "lost recipes" which are slowly leaving the Peruvian palette with the influence of globalization. It contains so many ingredients I am not familiar with (but which prompted me to become familiar with my local Latin grocery store). The number of unique ingredients involved heavy research before embarking upon a particularly interesting dish, which I found fun, because I am a giant food geek.

While the food is often SPICY and doesn't cater to an audience less-accustomed to hot peppers, which I can only say is A Good Thing, there are plenty of recipes in here everyone can enjoy without burning their lips off. Japanese, Chinese, Italian, Spanish, and native Peruvian flavors mingle together in novel and exciting ways. Everything I made tasted amazing.

Why not 5 stars? Two reasons:

1) The measurements. It is a confident chef indeed who can squint suspiciously at a recipe and say, "I think that's too much salt. I'm going to reduce it by half." (I speak, incidentally, of the "Peruvian Rice" recipe contained in this volume.) I say "confident" because it takes serious steel vertebrae to modify a dish one has never eaten, and can not predict the flavor of. Having made several of the recipes, I suspect the measurements are far too imprecise to replicate verbatim, which means this book will be inaccessible to newly-minted home cooks. Or indeed anyone totally unfamiliar with Peruvian cuisine.

2) The format. Wow, the text is small! Some of the use-words need defining before becoming a seamless part of the text. (See: "tacu.") The chapters are divided along guidelines whose organization and qualifications remain mysterious to me. Recipes are written with additions of other recipes, which mean skipping around the book along those aforementioned nonsensical chapter divisions.

Because cookbooks are comprised of 1 part measurements, 1 part formatting, and 1 part expertise on the cuisine in question, one may well wonder why this book got such a good review. The amount of learning necessary beforehand complicated my experience, but that's because I am primarily familiar with Portuguese and German food, and a certain amount of "culture shock" is to be expected. I can hardly hold it against the book!

Also: I love Peruvian food. I love it so much that when I heard Gaston Acurio, a world-class chef and expert on Peruvian cuisine, had published a book about it, I immediately checked it out of the library. And because of my love, I slogged through a worthy volume which, as near as I can tell, suffered more in the editing than the authorship. Because the pursuit of love is worth all the Googling, worth flipping rapidly through multiple bookmarks, worth the time it takes to learn how to eat in completely new ways.

[Sandra Vel · Rating 5 out of 5]

La Biblia de la cocina peruana , por el famoso chef Gaston Acurio. Si quieres tener 1 libro de gastronomía peruana, entonces, sin duda, es este, ¡con más de 500 recetas!

Es un recetario extenso, muy completo y lleno de color, con muchas imágenes.
Está organizado en distintas secciones: ceviches (unos 50 diferentes)/ entrantes/ street food/ sopas, caldos y chupes/ arroces, aguaditos, chaufas y tacu tacu/ ajíes, guisos, salteados y otros platos/ postres y dulces/ bebidas (interesante sección que no suele encontrarse en otros libros)/ preparaciones básicas y condimentos/ glosario (muy necesario para los que no somos peruanos ya que hay ingredientes que no había oído nunca)/ índice (indispensable, debido a la cantidad de recetas que contiene).

Como la mayoría de libros de recetas, no es un libro para leer de una sentada, más bien es un libro de consulta, pero un libro indispensable para los amantes de la cocina peruana o/y para los viajeros que quieran recordar Perú y volver a viajar con el paladar, desde sus casas.

[Marcela · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book at my local library and was pleased to be able to take it home and peruse it. I am from Peru and grew up on the local foods. This book is a huge treasure of authentic Peruvian recipes. Unfortunately, Chef Gaston Acurio needed a much better translator which would have given him book the highest rating. Throughout this book, the recipes call for lemons when instead he means limes. The flavor will be different. Limes grow in Peru, not lemons. Peruvians call limes - limones, which looks like lemons. The translator must not have made many Peruvian dishes because Peruvians LOVE to add limes to their dishes. Sigh. l can only hope that those who buy this cookbook are able to find out about this error and make the appropriate corrections. There is a Spanish version of this cookbook, which I am sure contains the correct recipes. This version would have gotten one less star, except for the plentiful recipes and stories behind them.

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am thoroughly enjoying reading about the history and relevance of many Peruvian dishes. I collect Phaidon published cookbooks because they are always so unique and detailed about the places the chefs write about. My husband lived in Peru and making dishes that he is familiar with and hasn’t tasted in years has been an amazing feeling! I rated this a 5 originally but had to mark it down to 4. I’ve seen some other reviews with similar concerns that the recipes have perhaps not been translated properly and it’s difficult to source some ingredients or find things that are comparable. I can only assume that every recipe that I’ve made from the book is not “up to snuff” for Peruvian taste. I always have to alter recipes due to the altitude where I live but none of the recipes in this book have worked out regardless. This book does not seem to be well suited to kitchens in the United States both for ease of procuring ingredients and measurements (even when weighed, things did not turn out right).

[brunella]

this is research

[Leonard · Rating 5 out of 5]

I saw some interesting recipes in this book and made copies of about a dozen which I may want to try sometime soon. The book is very colorful with an immensely attractive cover and design. The photos, always necessary in a well done cookbook are great. I also saw a few recipes that I will not be trying including the one for "cooked chicken blood."

[Ashley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very much a classic cookbook. I would have liked more anecdotes and stories.

[Samela St. Pierre · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved the little foreword intro by Gaston Acurio talking a bit about his past and how Peruvian cuisine developed, would've liked more of that interspersed throughout the sections, but that's just a personal preference.

As far as the recipes, this is a treasure trove to avid home cooks and people familiar with Peruvian cuisine. However if you're new to Peruvian food, the lack of photos I imagine will be a challenge. And if you're a beginner cook, well, even I found some of the recipes scant for details instruction-wise and I grew up cooking many of these dishes with my Peruvian grandmother.

The recipes I tried (I've prepared about half a dozen so far) came out well, though I had to call my grandmother for clarification on a couple techniques in regards to tamales and humitas that the book doesn't quite explain clearly. That said, having actual measurements for all the ingredients is a godsend compared to my usual familial recipes that include "some of this" "a little of that" types of vagueness.

So yes, I'm enjoying this book quite a bit, challenging as it might be.

[Mary Rude · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a lovely and interesting cookbook about a cuisine I knew almost nothing about. Apparently Gaston Acurio is quite a celebrity in his home country, but I think that this book could have used some editing for American audiences. For one thing, the recipes can be quite repetitive. Some dishes will be written out multiple times, even though they are just variations of exactly the same recipe, only with one new thing added. This space could have been used for more photos, which there really aren't enough of. And unusual terms or ingredients are often mentioned with no explanation of what they are. I shouldn't have to use Google so much to understand a cookbook! And lastly, the vast majority of these recipes have ingredients that are just not fully attainable here, like brains, rocoto chilis, and soursop. Even goat lungs, testicles, and chicken blood are in here. Heck, I couldn't even find fava beans in my area groceries, and that's in dozens of these recipes.

[Maryalene · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had no idea Peruvian food was so diverse, and I think this cookbook would be a great addition to the collection of anyone looking to try to new cuisines.

Unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to try any of the recipes myself since I had trouble sourcing ingredients. For instance, a number of recipes call for you to first make a yellow chili paste using yellow chilis. The glossary at the end notes that yellow chilis are actually orange but doesn't give any more specifics so I am not sure what chilis to use for the paste. The only yellow/orange chilis at my supermarket are habaneros which seem too spicy for the amount used in the recipe.

While this isn't a practical book for me to use at home, I enjoyed reading the introduction and perusing the many, many recipes included.

[archie]

i’ve only made the quinoa chaufa from this book but it was one of the most delicious meals i’ve made in a long time & will for sure be a staple for me

living in a rural area & not having access to many ingredients along with not being able to eat red meat really narrows down the number of recipes i can make & stay true to but ill be taking lots of inspo from these flavor profiles in my cooking going forward

side note, i saw another reviewer say that the translator made an error & every time a recipe calls for “lemon” it should actually be “lime” so that’s something keep in mind if you pick this one up

[Alejandro Cribillero · Rating 4 out of 5]

No sé de cocina, lo que me gustó es que haya incluido el "jugoso de pescado" un plato muy de mi ciudad natal Chimbote, Ancash - Perú.

[Spencer Eaves · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good recipes, I would appreciate more explanation of some of the ingredients, there are a few ingredients you just have to look up on your own.

[My Tam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ate at La Mar in SF and promptly ordered the book. Thoroughly well researched and deeply personal take of Peruvian cuisine, culture, and history.

[Reading Fool · Rating 5 out of 5]

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.

Reading this cookbook was a great way to learn about Peruvian cuisine. The author makes the cuisine very accessible to non-Peruvians, and he clearly shows his love for his native land and roots. Each recipe comes with a short note from the author, which I enjoyed tremendously - it made the book much more personal. The book itself is gorgeous, though I wish it had more photos. The way the book is bound and designed is very functional for cooks.

[Heather and Ollie]

From Jo, Pauline and Tom

[Sara · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good reference. Don't think I'd make anybody the dishes

[Beth Lequeuvre · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lot of the information is almost word for word what was in the documentary but the recipes & photos are fantastic.