2006 IACP Award Winner: American Category!

A fabulous feast of new American recipes from one of our most popular cookbook authors.

The huge influx of Asians, Indians, Middle Easterners, and Latin Americans in the last 40 years has brought to our kitchens new, fresh, and spicy flavors. At the same time, health and environmental concerns have dramatically affected how and what we eat. As a result, American cooking has never been as varied and as exciting as it is today--and Joan Nathan proves it on every page.

Criscrossing the country, she talks to organic farmers, artisanal bread bakers and cheese makers, a Hmong farmer in Minnesota, a mango grower in Florida, an entrepreneur of Indian frozen foods in New Jersey, home cooks, and innovative young chefs. Among the enticing dishes she discovers are a breakfast huevos rancheros casserole; starters such as Cambodian shrimp, Szechuan dumplings, Malaysian swordfish satays; pea soup with kaffir leaves; gazpacho with sashimi; pasta dressed with pistachio pesto; Iraqi rice-stuffed Vidalia onions; main courses of Ecuadorean casuela, Tunisian fish couscous, brisket, and rum ribs; and desserts for every taste. Each recipe has a story behind it, and through these stories, Nathan gives us a portrait of our current wildly diverse national culinary character.

The New American Cooking is a pleassure to read and to cook from -- a must for every American kitchen.