Eating Cuban: 120 Authentic Recipes from the Streets of Havana to American Shores - Tapa dura

To "eat Cuban" is to savor a deliciously complex culinary culture. Spanish, Native American, African, Chinese, and French traditions have all contributed to Cuban cooking, producing a distinctive Caribbean cuisine as richly chorded as the island's music.Beverly Cox and Martin Jacobs's itinerary takes them from the barrio, paladars (private restaurants), and chic nightspots of Havana to the eateries of Florida's emigre communities. From their journeys, they've gathered more than 120 recipes that comprehensively document Cuban cooking's diversity, from the black bean soup found on any Cuban table, to the empanadas sold by Havana's street vendors, to the grilled sandwiches that are a mainstay of Miami's Calle Ocho, to the innovative dishes devised by chefs at top Cuban restaurants.Gorgeously illustrated with Jacobs's photographs -many shot on the authors' travels through Cuba-Eating Cuban highlights Cuban food's historical roots, the classic Creole dishes that evolved from these disparate cultural influences, current trends in Cuban cooking, street foods and on-the-go snacks, and quintessential Cuban beverages from cafe Cubano to the mojito. A valuable resource list helps American cooks locate the required ingredients, and a restaurant directory points the way to the very best in Cuban cuisine-in Cuba and the U.S.

Beverly Cox learned to cook in Paris, where she apprenticed with world-renowned chef Gaston LeNotre. She has written 10 cookbooks, including Spirit of the Harvest, which won James Beard and IACP Awards. Ana Menendez is the author of the short-story collection In Cuba I Was a German Shepherd (the title story of which won the Pushcart Prize) and the critically acclaimed first novel Loving Che. The daughter of Cuban exiles, she has covered Miami's Little Havana section for the Miami Herald, and is now a columnist for that paper. Martin Jacobs is an award-winning food photographer who has photographed more than 40 cookbooks.