The Latin Road Home: Savoring the Foods of Ecuador, Spain, Cuba, Mexico, and Peru by Jose Garces

Hardcover 

October 8, 2012

Spanning cultures and continents, The Latin Road Home is a look back at the many food traditions that have shaped Garces’ culinary life.

Beginning in Ecuador, ancestral home to his family and the foods nearest to his heart, Garces celebrates the traditional recipes of his childhood. The book makes its way through Spain, Cuba, Mexico, and Peru―extraordinary cuisines Garces has come to know, love, and master. He shares not only recipes, but colorful memories of local cultures and insights into their unique ingredients and techniques. The cookbook features over 100 recipes tailored to the home cook, accompanied by over 100 food and travel photographs that truly immerse the reader.

Each chapter features a different country with menus highlighting Garces’ takes on both mainstays of home cooking and popular street foods. The book is full of recipes for bright salads and ceviches, comforting stews, hearty beans, and tender braised meats. When a celebratory feast is in order, Jose’s party menus are full of hors d’oeuvres, cocktails, and impressive fare for a kind of night where cooking becomes a part of the festivities.

Recipes are titled in both English and Spanish and stay true to their roots. Soulful, vibrant Latin dishes such as these will surely become the home-cooked staples of readers’ kitchens: Green Plantain Empanadas with Braised Chicken, Grilled Spring Onions with Almond Sauce, Fried Stuffed Chiles, Braised Beef Stew with Red Beans, Pan-Roasted Shrimp with Tequila, and Salt-Baked Fish with Ginger Oil. From the gastronomic powerhouse that is Spain to the seafood-rich shores of fiery Peru, Garces showcases the heart of Latin cooking with dishes that are at once sophisticated and elemental.