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Filipino Cuisine: Recipes from the Islands (Red Crane Cookbook Series)
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List Price: $29.95
Special Price: $19.77
Your Savings: $ 10.18 ( 34% )
Availability: In stock soon. Order now to get in line. First come, first served.
Manufacturer: Red Crane Books
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 641.59599
EAN: 9781878610638
ISBN: 1878610635
Label: Red Crane Books
Manufacturer: Red Crane Books
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 352
Publication Date: 1997-05-01
Publisher: Red Crane Books
Studio: Red Crane Books
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Editorial Reviews:
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A surprise to those unfamiliar with the Philippines is the great geographical diversity of the Islands and their six major culinary regions. Gerry Gelle's contribution to our understanding of this diversity is his knowledge of these regions. His recipes include the mountain and coastal regions of Northern Luzon and the many islands of the Visayas and the island of Mindanao. We learn of the rich mixtures of people, from the Pangasinans of Luzon with their specialty of "cultured" fish, to the Tagalogs, who use vinegar and fruits to give their dishes the preferred sour taste. He explains the use of guinamos, a paste of fermented shrimp or fish in the Visayas, and the use of hot chilies and spices to make curry in Mindanao. After cooking with these recipes, you will know the aromas and tastes of Filipino cooking.
"Although he gives a culinary geography lesson of the spread-out islands that make up the Philippines, Gelle says 'the book was written from a Filipino-American point of view, not a Filipino point of view.' Thus, the recipes sometimes have been modified to fit both American ingredients and the Americanized tastes of those born and raised in this country. The recipes are no less authentic for being adapted."-San Francisco Chronicle
"There are far too few Filipino cookbooks on the market; most competitors appearing in non-durable paperback which may not survive the rigors of library lending. This solid hardcover is perfect for a library's ethnic cookbook collection: over 200 recipes complete with a selection of fine color photos embellish an in-depth reference to the cuisine of many Philippine islands. Included are an index and glossary, plus plenty of cultural references."-The Bookwatch
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Filipino Cuisine
Comment: My daughter in law is Filipino and a very busy R.N. with little time to cook. The book gives a history of development of Filipino food over the past couple of centuries. The recipes are easy to follow; just wish there were pictures of the finished dishes.
Customer Rating:
Summary: the only Filipino cookbook I own
Comment: I am an America-born Filipina. In my search of the ingredients from my childhood family and friends' gatherings, I found this cookbook. Dr. Gelle was able to present all of the recipes and more that I have eaten. I am very impressed with the quality of the cookbook, given that there are minor ingredient/measurement changes from region to region in the PI. I find that the recipes provide an extremely decent guideline of ingredients and preparation techniques that can be lost in translation from generation to generation. I highly recommend this cookbook.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Insightful! Awesome Book!
Comment: This book was thorough! It not only had recipes but also gave history & geography lessons on the Philippines & how Filipino cuisine came to be. I'm a Filipina, & I learned A LOT from his book.
When I was growing up, my Mom would try to teach me all the Filipino dishes she knew. I couldn't learn from her because she cooks without using exact measurements. Her method was, "You just add a little & taste -- a little bit of this & a little bit of that..." I needed measurements, & she couldn't give them. I couldn't learn like that. She also would tell me the Filipino word for a particular vegetable but wouldn't know what it was in English. Needless to say, she & I both got frustrated, so I stopped trying to learn to cook Filipino style, & she stopped trying to teach.
This book has inspired me to cook Filipino food now. It gives the English equivalent for vegetables that I NEVER knew (kang kong is water spinach! I just learned that from the book!), & if it doesn't, it shows a picture AND descriptively explains what it looks & tastes like.
This book crosses all cultural gaps because the author successfully explains any foreign ingredients or terms used in Filipino cooking. The other Filipino cookbooks I own didn't take the time to do that. I grew up in the USA & hardly speak any Tagalog, so this book is a KEEPER!
I'm glad I bought it because now I can share my culture with my family.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Very impressive.
Comment: I've seen my share of Filipino cookbooks, both in the US and the Philippines. Until I found this book, there weren't any selections that impressed me enough to spend any money.
The directions are easy to understand, and I like the fact that the author included historical background, geographical notes, and an in-depth glossary. There aren't many pictures, but the few pictures in the book are lovely. I made the sapin-sapin (sticky rice cake), and it was a success. I even bought a copy of the book for my mother because my dad lost her Filipino cookbook that was over 30 years old. She was very impressed with the choice of recipes.
This is the best Pinoy cookbook I've seen. I'd recommend it to anyone.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Two Filipino cookbooks compared. This one wins!
Comment: `Filipino Cuisine' by Gerry G. Gelle is a new title that should replace the old standard `The Philippine Cookbook' by Reynaldo Alejandro, which has been out for about 22 years. Ten years ago, when I was looking for a book of Filipino recipes, it was virtually the only volume available, even making it a reference on Filipino cuisine to such major culinary writers as Raymond Sokolov in his important book `The Cook's Canon'. Gelle's book improves on Alejandro's book in almost every regard, most especially where it counts in the description of the recipes.
Even the most cursory look at these two books will suggest that Gelle's volume is the better book. A look at the two authors' biographical sketches confirms that initial impression, as Gelle is a full time professional chef while Alejandro seems to be a jack of all trades, doing as much in dramatics and dancing as in writing and cooking.
Both books give very informative introductions on the origins of Filipino cuisine. Both, for example, point out that the Spanish influence is less direct than an influence by way of Mexico, since the Spanish governors in Mexico were much closer to the islands than was the court in Madrid. Gelle's introductory chapter seems much more timely, however, in that influences and native foods are discussed by region, in much the same way one has come to expect in descriptions of great Chinese, Japanese, French, and Italian cuisines.
While Alejandro's book may have been the best there was 10 years ago, it now has the appearance of a very journeymanlike effort, much like so many inexpensive books of recipes from Latvia, Rumania, Hungary, or Poland. Because, 20 years ago, a simple list of recipes was all you needed to create a credible book on a national cuisine. The book does include some nice extras such as a glossary of Filipino culinary terms and a list of sources. Unfortunately, as almost all these sources are small strip mall stores like the one I used to visit to get my 25 pound sacks of rice and my lumpia wrappers and my mung beans, most of them are probably now out of business.
The bottom line is that Gelle really has the better recipes, and it is this fact which makes his book worth the extra cost and time it may take to find a copy.
Oddly, Alejandro's recipes for adobo, for example are much closer to the way my adopted Filipino family actually cooked adobo, and the way I learned to cook it. Gelle's recipe, however, is quite evidently much closer to how leading native Filipino chefs cook adobo, especially since his recipe for chicken and pork adobo agrees with the recipe in the very authoritative `Bruce Cost's Asian Ingredients'. For starters, Alejandro says nothing about marinading the meats overnight in the soy and vinegar liquid, yet it is evident that this brings the recipe much closer to its Mexican roots. Gelle is also alone in citing that the vinegar in these dishes is not any garden variety Heinz product, but `sukang paombong', a native Philippine vinegar.
Another symptom of the superiority of Gelle's recipes is in the comparison of the way the two authors deal with the classic Spanish empanada. While Alejandro gives a very simple filling of ground beef, potatoes, and raisins, Gelle's filling includes carrots, chicken, pork, hard-boiled eggs, and sweet pickle. The recipes for the dough are different, and I would be hard pressed to prefer one to the other. Alejandro's recipe is slightly simpler, in that it uses one egg yolk per cup of flour for fat. Gelle uses egg yolks and butter for the fat in his recipes. The only way I can adjudicate between the two is that Gelle's recipe is much closer to the classic Spanish recipe, as presented by Penelope Casas in `The Foods and Wines of Spain'. So, in the light of other evidence of greater fidelity to his sources, I am inclined to believe Gelle's recipe is closer to the way this dish is done in Manila. In any case, Gelle's description of the procedure for making empanadas is much more detailed than in Alejandro's book, and Gelle gives alternate procedures for deep-frying or baking the empanadas. Gelle also gives recommendations on how long uncooked empanadas can be held in the freezer.
A third evidence of Gelle's superior recipes is in a comparison of their recipes for spring roll (lumpia) wrappers. Alejandro gives a quick simple three ingredient recipe while Gelle gives two different recipes, both of which are much richer and more detailed in presentation than Alejandro's book.
Only in the number of pancit recipes does Alejandro give us more than Gelle. Also, Alejandro's recipes for pancit seem just a bit more interesting, as in his recipe for my favorite Pancit Luglug which has something of a French air about it in that it creates a broth from shrimp shells to add to the sauce while Gelle relies on canned cream of mushroom soup to finish off the sauce.
If you are really fond of Filipino cooking, you may want both books, but you will certainly be better off with more accurate, more detailed, and more interesting recipes if you have only Gelle's book.
Recommended treatment of Filipino cuisine.
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