[Sca-cooks] New Book on Maya Cooking- Gene Anderson, bastardizing in Southern Mexico

[Saint Phlip]

Suey, what are you on about now? Gene's book makes no pretense to be
anything but what it is, a collection of recipes that he, personally
collected from Mayan descendents living in the areas he described. If
you son can write such a book, then why doesn't he? Meantime, until we
get translations of Mayan and Aztec hieoroglyphs, this is what we
have, and with a firm knowledge of the techniques and ingredients that
influenced the traditional methods of cookery, we may get an insight
into how they actually cooked.

I do, however, agree with Niccolo that there's a danger that the less
scholarly may decide to take this as real, pre-1700 Mayan cookery, but
that's true of any book that delves into the modern descendents of an
exotic cuisine.

On Fri, Oct 31, 2008 at 6:14 PM, Suey <lordhunt at gmail.com> wrote:
> Nick wrote:
>>
>> 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 draggin 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 waht ti is and not made to fit into the
>> 'primary resource' (or even secondary) category.
>>
>> Call me a cynic,
>> niccolo difrancesco
>>
>
> You are not a cynic. My son-in-law is an artist and historian, as I, and
> half Mexican living in Chiapas. He could write a book about what you are
> talking about but it goes back hundreds of years since Dame ? robbed who
> knows what from Mayan ruins. I would like to send sonny boy a copy of the
> cook book for him to present a formal opinion but I don't see where I can
> procure the book. On the other hand he might have a heart attack at his
> tender age (40 maybe?) upon reading it and that does no suit me. Suey
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-- 
Saint Phlip

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