[.ca] Seductions Of Rice (ISBN 0679309322)

From Amazon.com:
Chinese stir-frys, Spanish paellas, Japanese sushi, Indian thorans, Thai salads, Turkish pilafs, Italian risottos, Senegalese yassas, American gumbos: if rice isn't the heart and soul of all these diverse dishes, rice can be found piled right there at the side of the plate, or in a bowl. To say that Alford and Duguid, authors of the award-winning Flatbreads and Flavors, deliver the world of rice is much too simple an understatement. Your days of buying one rice to serve all purposes will end with even a cursory reading of this lovely book. The authors are photographers as well as writers, but their greatest skill may be to travel the world at the level of the culture they visit. They seem able to drop away from Western culture and hunker right down with rice vendor or cook, no matter where. Seductions of Rice opens with all the basics of rice, everything a reader would want to know and then some. Then on to the cultures of rice: Chinese, Japanese, Thai, Indian, Central Asian, Mediterranean, Senegalese, and North American. Recipes either made from rice or to accompany rice range from Chinese Congee to Thai Green Papaya Salad to Japanese Quick Morning Miso Soup to South Indian Lentil Stew to Cuban Black Beans to Mexican Green Rice. And in between? The authors fill in all the space between these diverse grains of rice with traveler's tales from the road. It is a luxurious book, a delicious book, a ripe combination of travel and taste. You leave off thinking that the world must be the shape of a rice ball. --Schuyler Ingle

No pictures of the recipes!:
This book is beautiful and informative, and full of color photographs. However, only a few of these photographs are of the finished dishes themselves. You'll see people in markets, rice paddies, rice for sale, landscapes, fish, vegetables, etc. The few photographs of dishes are on the cover and in a small section in the middle of the book. The caption under the photograph refers to the page with the recipe, but not vice versa, so the recipe does not lead you to the picture. Of approximately one hundred recipes, only about 25 have photographs of the finished dish. Also, about a third of the recipes don't feature rice itself, but are of dishes to be eaten with rice. I was looking for a book with lots of recipes using rice, and with color photos of the finished product. This book is not exactly that. There is a great recipe for tofu with tomatoes and coriander (where's the rice?), the rice-stuffed grape leaves are good as well. There is a lot of information about rice as a crop, different kinds of rice, etc.

Travelogue and Cookbook:
Since I have a great love for Asian and Oriental food, I am no stranger to rice in many of its variations. But my knowledge is fragmentary, and I am guilty of thinking of it as a mechanism for delivering food to my mouth, when the exact opposite is really true. To be honest, I didn't even know how much I didn't know. So when a friend confided to me that he had acquired a copy of "Seductions of Rice" I was intrigued. His description of the book convinced me that I would have to read it and, after some arm twisting, he yielded it up - on temporary lone only. For some reason I was expecting one of those thin lightweight essay books on rice and was amazed to discover this is a large, very well made volume with a great deal of narrative and an immense number of recipes. The book is full of countless black and white photographs taken by Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid on their rice hunts across the globe. There are also some wonderful color photographs taken by several professionals of food that looks so appetizing I was gaining weight reading the book. It is sufficiently well made and protected to last several generations of rice hungry families The narrative text provides many dissertations on the varieties of rice and the cooking thereof, as well as many pastiches about the authors' travels and the people they met. Often the recipes themselves contain even more narrative. Much effort has been put into making the book of value intellectually as well as gustatorially. For the most part it is arranged geographically, with chapters on Chinese, Thai, Japanese, Indian, Central Asian & Persian, Mediterranean, Senegalese, and North American rice cookery. The obligatory (but often left out) glossary, mail order, bibliography and index sections are also present. The book is clearly intended to be a working reference and the authors' have spared no effort to please. The recipes are often quite unusual. The writers have a great love for village, local and family cooking. As such you will find few of the ornate banquet dinners that are often presented to us in the US. Instead this is about food cooked by the people who love it the most. The recipes are clearly printed, with ingredients and alternatives carefully spelled out. Instructions are easily written, and it is hard to get lost mid-recipe, which is always a concern for someone as nearsighted as myself. I was delighted with many of them and am inspired to go out and add many bags of rice to my larder. Of course, I will now have to buy my own copy of "Seductions of Rice."

My favourite cookbook:
My family and I adore this book -- the information, the travel narratives, the photos, and of course the recipes. We were already eating a rice-based diet. This book has made our diet ever more varied and interesting.

one of my top 5 favourite cookbooks:
I have made over 50% of the recipies in this book. No other cookbook has given me this many "staples"! The recipes produce delicious results with some tastes outside of "standard" North American fare that are easy to fall in love with, are straightforward to cook, are well explained, and "from scratch" hence they produce tastes one does not tire of. Some recipes require some planning but none take long to cook or unfamiliar gadgets/techniques (ie. you need left over rice, or marinate chicken a few hours before). They create food I don't feel guilty eating (it's not oil-laden or processed). Some require a few more exotic ingredients, but these can be found in major grocery stores. The authors explain what they usually pair together, which helps with meal planning. My favourite rice dishes include: Mexican red rice (simple deliciousness, my all-time favourite dish), Mexican green rice, rissotto alla birra (with beer - creamy and indulgent), festive Turkish pilaf with pinenuts (wonderful flavour and texture), golden rice with saffron (calls for fish stock but I substitute chicken), and spring pilaf with fresh herbs (perfect side). These dishes are what I build my meals around; sometimes I just make some vegetables for a no-meat night. Then there are my other indispensibles: Jamaican rice and beans (a quick one-pot meal made with coconut milk), classic Thai fried rice (10 minute meal if you have left over rice - how so few ingredients taste so good I don't know), everyday sprouts, and Spanish rice pudding (my favourite rice pudding ever). Dishes that "wow" that I save for weekend dinners/company: thai grilled chicken with hot and sweet dipping sauce (addictive - you'll hear things like "you made this?), grilled pork satay with red curry sauce (another really addictive sauce), lamb-onion stew with cinnamon (really nice flavours if you enjoy lamb), black Thai coconut rice. If you like trying new things and enjoy cooking, you will love this book. It will reward you with recipes you will use again and again and again.

No instructions for using a rice cooker :-(:
Beautifully put together book, but my main complaint is that there are no instructions for using a rice cooker. The authors talk about how they used one for a year and were quite happy with this technique, but preferred using the saucepan method. That's all well and good, but some of us don't have the time or patience for that.