Local, Native Recipe Books

S

Syga Ramesh

New Member
Joined
16 Dec 2024
Local time
4:02 AM
Messages
3
Location
California
Hi everyone,

I'm a student at university studying ethnobotany and am looking for cookbooks of local, native recipes. The focus is more on the plants and animals in each region only and how the native communities and/or hunter gatherers combine and prepare them easily as opposed to combinations with ingredients from elsewhere and heavy processing in kitchens and what not. The more international in scope they are the better. Are you all aware of any books or resources like this? Any help would be appreciated.

Thank you,
S.R.
 
Hello there.
I live in Venezuela and there's a thriving interest in Amazon cooking, based on the dishes prepared by the indigenous Amazon tribes in southern Venezuela.
I could probably put you in touch with some of the literature ( at least), but it would be all in Spanish.
 
I don't know of any books, but as a resource, Best Ever Food Review Show channel on YouTube features A LOT of local and ethnic cooking from a lot of diverse countries. The shows go into quite a bit of detail as to what is going into the dishes as well as being funny and entertaining travel shows.
 
Interesting
But most cooking will be influenced by ingredients from elsewhere
I am in Southern Africa and the staple food is maize flour, which is not native.
Neither are the relish (gravy/soup/sauce) ingredients that go with it, tomato and onion, cabbage etc
 
As badjak stated; I'm in the deep South US and a *lot* of our cooking combines ingredients from Europe and Africa.
 
Yes, here in the USA there is such a blend of cultures and ethnicities. Not only are our recipes from various places around the world, but so are the ingredients. I can go to any number of international markets and find a myriad of things that are not native to the USA. And there is much divisiveness about where certain food recipes actually originated.
 
Pre-internet cookery books are most likely to give you local foods.
Plus cookery books from before cheap flights became available will give you the best idea.

Most of the cookery books and programmes I read or saw in the early 80’s would always mention if a recipe was ‘foreign’ as this was considered exotic!

‘The Dairy Book of Home Cookery’ published in 1978 contains a lot of traditional British cooking focusing on diary which the UK consumes a lot of. Although bear in mind the better end of British cooking has always been influenced by French chefs.

Any country that colonised other countries or has cities with large immigrant populations always has a mishmash of food traditions. Good food travels across borders with ease.

A faster route to what you want might be to google a countries main exports and then look for an old cookery book that focus on that area.
 
karadekoolaid said:
Hello there.
I live in Venezuela and there's a thriving interest in Amazon cooking, based on the dishes prepared by the indigenous Amazon tribes in southern Venezuela.
I could probably put you in touch with some of the literature ( at least), but it would be all in Spanish.
Click to expand...
Karadekoolaid, that would be great! Could you either send as attachments or maybe copy and paste their titles into a reply?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom