While we’re on the subject of food, I thought I would mention that this is the world’s best cookbook. Cambodian food has a lot of similarities to Thai and Vietnamese but I think it’s better than either. The recipes are surprisingly easy, and surprisingly similar to the ones at the Boston restaurant that publishes the cookbook. I’ve bought three copies so far–one for myself, two as gifts–and 1/3 to 1/4 of the meals my husband and I cook regularly are now Cambodian. (Our friends make fun of us for this, but they like eating the results. And the Irish and Jewish traditions aren’t exactly known for their food.)
The main problem is finding some of the more obscure ingredients–you can substitute ginger for galangal, and regular soy sauce for mushroom soy sauce, easily enough, but it’s hard to get started if you can’t find lemongrass and impossible if you can’t find fish sauce. I’ve located almost everything in Boston and found the rest in New York, but if you live in a more suburban or rural place it might be harder. (And in some cases we just got lucky–the local ice cream parlor, of all places, stocks kaffir lime leaves. Bizarre.)
Here are my other awards:
Best all-purpose cookbook: The new Joy of Cooking. Runner Up: How to Cook Everything.
Best Mexican cookbook: anything by Diana Kennedy. I have this one, but this one looks the most comprehensive.
Best Italian Cookbook: Marcella Cucina or Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking. Both by Marcella Hazan. I have the first, but I think the second might contain more recipes (though fewer pretty pictures.)
Best Asian Cookbook: The Cuisines of Asia, by Jennifer Brennan. This one’s a bit frustrating, because she writes like you have unlimited time to make spice pastes in advance and gives very little advice about substitution. But it’s got a better range than any other Asian cookbook I’ve seen.
Best Dessert Cookbook: Moosewood Restaurant Book of Desserts.
The Jewish tradition isn’t known for its food? Go to Schwartz’s in Montreal and tell them that. (Or the Carnegie Deli.)
That said, Penzeys sells lemongrass, and there are any number of websites that sell fish sauce too.
I’ve heard the Carnegie Deli is overpriced…but it’s true, I shouldn’t have overlooked bagels, knishes, latkes, etc. You can’t eat that every day though. (Oddly enough, most of the bagel bakers in NY now seem to be Muslim or Southeast Asian).
I don’t like corned beef and cabbage, so Irish food is worse to me. My sister had a roommate from Ireland who didn’t taste garlic until she was 25. I cannot get over this.
The main problem is finding some of the more obscure ingredients–you can substitute ginger for galangal, and regular soy sauce for mushroom soy sauce, easily enough, but it’s hard to get started if you can’t find lemongrass and impossible if you can’t find fish sauce. I’ve located almost everything in Boston and found the rest in New York, but if you live in a more suburban or rural place it might be harder.
In any decent-sized city, there will be a local oriental food mart. Orlando has several, and you can get the mushroom soy and various other ingredients easily. Dunno about the kaffir lime leaves. You can get the mushroom soy and other stuff mailorder. Google it. You know you want to.
Some of my favorite daily dishes come straight from Williams-Sonoma cookbooks. Especially the pasta one.