THE ART OF MEXICAN COOKING:
Traditional Mexican Cooking for Aficionados
By Diana Kennedy
Clarkson Potter
496 pp. $30.00

Except for me, Dowdy Corners Cookbook Club members have put Mexican cooking behind them and have moved on to cooking soups, salads, and breads from our current cookbook. Everyone in the club loved The Art of Mexican Cooking, as you’ll read below in my review, but sentimental attachment is not the reason I haven’t yet let go. It’s the review—the task for each cookbook that I always save for last for reasons of objective synthesis (I need to wait until I hear what each member thought of the book), but also because review writing stirs a youthful condition I thought I’d long beaten into submission: procrastination. Perhaps that’s because when in school book reviews were one of many writing assignments that were generally dreaded, and because the activities of cooking, eating, and drinking Margaritas with club members are free of school days association. (If anyone has any book review writing tips to help me oust those “school assignment” feelings, please bring them on.)

In the meantime, while I work on casting out procrastination once and for all, here is my review of the third Dowdy Corners’ cookbook, starting with the food, the reason why we cook:

The Food

One of our members was initially lukewarm about the club’s choice of a Mexican cookbook; prior to cooking from The Art of Mexican Cooking, her only reference for Mexican cooking was Americanized food served in average Mexican restaurants, and she was not impressed. Now she is completely hooked.

Another member thanked me for bringing Diana Kennedy into her life, but did not thank me for the ten pounds she said she gained while enjoying luxurious amounts of crème fraîche. (Note: weight gain is not an unavoidable result of cooking from this book.)

What’s so great about Mexican food? It’s flavorful and full of contrast, and is about as far from bland as you can get.

Here is what we learned from reading and cooking from The Art of Mexican Cooking:

• Mexican cooking excels at contrast—combining contrasts of textures and temperatures, such as hot pozoletopped with raw, crunchy vegetables; contrasts of chili heat and soothing or neutral components, such as crème fraîche, tortillas, or rice; and contrasts of fatty, deep flavors with fresh, bright accents, such as rich, lard-cooked foods offset with fresh chiles, tomatoes, or vinegar.
• Garnishes are key to Mexican cooking. They are essential elements that do more than beautify a dish—they help to provide the contrast described above: raw diced onion and crumbled dried Mexican oregano on a puréed salsa add not only flavor but a satisfying crunch; shredded lettuce, crème fraîche, and salsa, cooling and refreshing, complement a fried taco hot out of the pan.
• The cooking techniques used to prepare Mexican food are essentially rustic, a benefit to the home cook: whole tomatoes are broiled to heighten flavor and then blended, core and all, as a basis for a sauce; sauces aren’t labored over, but are reduced quickly, in fat (generally lard), in a skillet over high heat (you will want to use a splatter screen for this technique). Some recipes may require some time to pull off, but none are fussy or technically difficult.
• Though Mexican food tends to be piquant—not a big surprise considering the key role chiles play in the cuisine—how fiery to make a dish is completely in control of the cook, and many dishes are not spicy at all. Chiles are often charred, which rounds out their sharp bite, and the seeds and membranes removed, which is where the heat resides.

The Book

The subtitle for this book, barely noticeable in contrast to the type size of the main title, is:

Traditional Mexican Cooking for Aficionados

The two key words to take note of are “traditional” and “aficionados.”

Though many authentically “quick-and-easy” recipes are included, this cookbook is not for cooks who want something simplified, to the point of hybridization; it is for passionate home cooks who prefer to delve deeply into a foreign cuisine using traditional recipes, or who at least prefer to be given the opportunity to do so. If you wish you purchase queso fresco, crème fraîche, or chorizo for the recipes in The Art of Mexican Cooking, you may do so; if you wish to make these foods at home, Kennedy has included recipes to show you the way.

If you have space on your bookshelf for just one book on Mexican cooking, The Art of Mexican Cooking is a good choice. First published in 1989, and reissued in 2008, it has over two hundred recipes, useful text on cooking equipment and ingredients, and interesting stories about the cuisine. There is much to cook and learn from this book; for this reason, the club spent three months on it, rather than the typical two months we’ve devoted to other books so far.

The Art of Mexican Cooking is devoted to the traditional, popular foods of Mexico—tortillas, first and foremost, and all the dishes that are either made or served with them, which encompasses most of Mexican cooking: tacos, quesadillas, enchiladas, soups, beans, eggs, seafood, chicken, pork and beef dishes, and several vegetables dishes, among which Swiss chard and squash blossoms feature predominantly. Rice, pasta, breads, and desserts are also included.

You will find recipes for a number of foods made with the corn flour mixture known as masa, including tamales, which have a chapter devoted to them, and a myriad of masa-based snacks that will be lesser-known to most Americans: molotes, sopes, tlacoyos, cazuelitas, pintos, polkanes, panuchos, chochoyotes.

As newcomers to Mexican cooking, club members’ only criticism of the book is a lack, in a handful of recipes, of completely clear and detailed instructions. In general, we felt that the recipes require a bit of pre-existing cooking knowledge, and a willingness to do a bit a sleuthing for those handful of recipes in need of more “user-friendly” instruction. That said, we all agreed that the results were always were the effort. Every last thing we tried in this book was delicious.