A Taste For Adventure by Anik SeeFrom page one I was bowed over by the beauty of her writing, the clarity of her vision, and the warmth of her acceptance. She was a true traveler. She wrote:
Right now I'm sitting on a dock on the Rideau Canal in Eastern Canada.... I'm looking up, and in the sky there is the shiny glint of a jet airplane caught in the sun's grasp, pushing silently east; I'm thinking, there are four hundred people going somewhere else....I want everyone on that plane to be on their way to a place they have always wanted to go--maps already perused and worn in the folds from curious fingers following streets, emergency cab fare handy in a coat pocket--but intending to walk everywhere, to soak everything in. I want everyone to have already envisioned the park bench or alleyway or restaurant where they will sit or walk or close their eyes and taste something they have never tasted before and realize that they are finally here, that they have been waiting for so long and they are finally here.
Everywhere she goes she seeks out food and finds friendship. When people see how eager she is to appreciate their foods--and therefore their culture--they offer it freely.
This book is about realizing that in places where culture is celebrated vivaciously, fear simply dissipates. The world is much more open-armed than we think.
And then she launches into twelve short chapters, one for each journey. She eats adzhapsandali in Georgia, bubur injin in Indonesia, and posole (Rosita's) in Mexico. Somehow she scrapes up recipes for each journey and translates them into foods we can find and measurements we can duplicate. That had to be a lot of work--I doubt if very many of the street vendors and home cooks used precise quantities.
I haven't tried any yet, but I plan to. But don't get me wrong--this is a travel book much more than a cookbook. the recipes are just icing on the cake.
Too bad someone doesn't come up with an online version that will ship you samples of the food after each chapter.
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