[Sca-cooks] New Book on Maya Cooking- Gene Anderson

[Stefan li Rous]

Niccolo Difrancesco commented:
  <<<
-----Original Message-----
Dear Authentic Cooks:  I have just brought out a book, MAYALAND
CUISINE, about the traditional cooking of the Maya areas of
Mexico--the Yucatan Peninsula plus the states of Chiapas and Tabasco.
The recipes are all things I collected myself from people there or
translated from obscure local cookbooks (mostly pamphlets of very
limited circulation). The recipes are all traditional--which sometimes
means they go back 2000 years and sometimes only 100, so use with
caution if you want to be authentically pre-1700!  > > > > > > >

This looks like a cool book.  It does seem to be a 'traditional' cookery
book rather than a book to rely on for discerning actual Mayan food
traditions during the time of the Mayan Empire rise and fall.  It  
should be
able to familiarize us with what their cookery became, and build some
beginning foundation for inferences . . . but NOT be a direct  
reference for
period Mayan cookery.  Cool book for what it proclaims to be . . .  
wolf in
sheeps clothing when people start dragging it out as documentation.   
Several
books have already been b at stardized that way in the last 10 years.

I hope this one is appreciated for what it is and not made to fit  
into the
'primary resource' (or even secondary) category. >>>

Yes, I think this is a reasonable description of this work.

I've had a copy of the manuscript for several months now since Gene  
sent me a copy (Thanks, Phlip!). I had yet to start editing it for  
placing it in the Florilegium since it was going to be a major  
effort. It is a a fairly long manuscript.

It doesn't strictly fit within the bounds of the Florilegium, but  
Gene didn't think any of the regular publishers would take it and I  
thought it was a wonderful bit of work and didn't want to see it get  
lost.  I think it will be useful and of interest for folks interested  
in that culture and time.  No, it doesn't have the original recipes  
culled from specific works, but for those wanting to study this  
particular culture, this is a wonderful starting place, whether they  
are cooks or not.  As we've discussed here previously some cultures  
simply don't have the wealth of surviving documents to draw from as  
English, Andalusian and Italian do.  Welsh and Polish come to mind,  
and this book is similar to the books done for those cultures.

Since Gene has made arrangements to self-publish this book, I guess I  
will not be placing a copy in the Florilegium, I indeed have mixed  
feelings about this. It would have made a nice addition to the  
Florilegium although a bit outside of its purpose, but Gene deserves  
to make his investment back and it will likely have a larger audience  
than it would in the Florilegium.

Stefan
--------
THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
    Mark S. Harris           Austin, Texas           
StefanliRous at austin.rr.com
**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****