Homemade Food

World Flavors

By: Terrapetti Publishing

Narrated by: Denise Kahn

Since the beginning of time, food is what brought us all together. But as the human race evolved over time, our desire for unique culinary experiences grew to an insatiable intrigue to be transported to exotic places and enjoy a rich tapestry of taste. A taste sparked by the leaders of the culinary renaissance of their times, a taste that has been maintained through history, a taste that emerged into a tradition and was perfected from generation to generation. That is exactly why, beyond any stars and culinary degrees, it's always the most passionate cook who will make the tastiest meal.

Terrapetti's World Flavors publication is your passport for the tastiest homemade meals around the globe. A map guiding you into the history, the context and the recipes for the most typical dishes of each country. Foods have crossed borders into other countries and regions, they've conquered frontiers faster than wars and are the inspiration and roots of new emerging tastes and culinary techniques, all of which you will be able to experience through this book.

©2016 Terrapetti Publishing (P)2016 Terrapetti Publishing

A gastronomical cultural & world history tour!

With just under 70 recipes from thirteen regions of the world, Homemade Food: World Flavors is a gastronomical tour of our planet. More so, it’s a gastronomical cultural and world history tour.

This loving presented cookbook, beautifully narrated by Denise Kahn, puts every recipe into a cultural or historical context when describing its origins and its place in society before moving on to explain how it’s prepared. More than most other recipe books that endeavour to do something similar, Homemade Food: World Flavors, provides enough depth of information that you find yourself respecting the dish you’re about to prepare.

A great number of societies are based around their food, yet the cultural significance of our cuisine is usually overlooked. Terrapetti Publishing has sought to correct this with three authors from three different cultures who have compiled the recipes and details.

Not all information can be taken as gospel – examining the section on Australia, for example, the MCG (Melbourne Cricket Ground) is referred to as The G; Australia’s meat pie is named as Dog's Eye & Dead Horse – old rhyming slang that hasn’t been in common use for a couple of generations at least; and the description of Australian cuisine is one that this Australian food lover barely recognised.

That said, the book conjures up images of culture and place that, while not perhaps entirely accurate or modern, still gives the food context. It’s the recipes themselves that most readers will no doubt be interested in and there’s around 68 dishes that live up to the title – meals that you would and could cook at home from the Americas, Caribbean, Europe, Asian, Middle East, and Australasia

Like the traditions of the regions, some recipes are precise while others just give you the ingredients and method without specific measurements.

Narrator Denise Kahn makes each dish sound mouth-watering. She reads very slowly, allowing time to make notes or for the words to sink in. Her voice is soft and articulate, unlike the recording itself which lacks the sharpness obtained from a professional studio. Kahn’s pronunciation of the various food names is a difficult and commendable feat that she makes sound effortless. Bravo! I’d love to hear the outakes!

This and my other audiobook reviews can be found on my site at SaidNotRead dot wordpress dot com. The challenge of an audiobook reading of a recipe book is the need to regularly hit the pause button or to jot down the details before cooking – unless you have an exceptional memory for what you’ve just heard. For the visually impaired however, or those who struggle with English literacy, this could be a great gift.

A flavourful read!

This is more than just a cookbook - it is filled with tons of useful information. You will listen to the different culture from different places, the history of food and so much more! A delightful, flavourful and delicious read!

I loved the narrator's voice. Highly excellent performance!

Perfect for food lovers.

Quite the eclectic collection of recipes!

Connecting traditional recipes with culture and history is what this book is about. This book contains nearly 70 recipes from 13 different regions around the world. This book was written by 3 different people who live in different cities around the world, though the book never names who these three people are.

I’ve listened to other cookbooks as audiobooks but this one was more of a conversation about food that happened to have recipes tossed in. I was amused to see the book starts off with poutine as I find that such a heavy meal suited for cold weather and ice fishing. However this North American section talks about the great melting pot that the continent is and what that means for typical, tasty meals in that location.

The book does a great job of providing this context for all the regions discussed: North America, Central America & the Caribbean, South America, Northern Europe, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Southern Europe, Northern Africa, Western Africa, Middle East along with South & Central Asia, East Asia & Japan, Southeast Asia, Australia & New Zealand. With the lens of traditional food, the world gets divided up a little differently than in the world of politics.

Each meal starts with an introduction, Meal Presentation, about how that meal came about, what significance it has in the local culture and the very basics of what make it. Then we get the How to Cook This Meal which is a very basic recipe without measurements. It’s more of a conversation about how to make this dish. I really liked this approach because I often view recipes as suggestions of how to make a meal rather than strict guidelines.

There were plenty of meals that I didn’t have a clue how to pronounce and had not heard of before but sound really interesting. Mofongo. Charquican Stew. Kjotsupa. Tochitura. Chorba Frik. MaPo Doufu. Kiwi Hangi. I could go on, but I expect this gives you an idea of the diversity of recipes in this book. All together, it was a delightful and enlightening book on food from around the world.

I received a free copy of this book.

The Narration: Denise Kahn did an OK job. Her recording sounded tinny most of the time. I really don’t know if she pronounced everything correctly but the Spanish and Germanic words sounded correct to my novice ears. For some reason she read out the entire table of contents. Now this might have been a requirement of the publisher. It was really boring and didn’t really give me anything.

Would be better in Print.

I loved the book and the narrator but this would be a book that olI personally would rather have in digital or hard cover as I would love to try some of the recipes. That being said, the book was very informative. Giving a brief description of the culture of each country, how the dish originated, as well as the recipe for you to try. I would love to read more books in this series but I will be getting the written copies in the future for the simple reason I would like the print recipes.

Really Good!!

There are so many amazing receipes in this book. So useful and different receipes.

All listeners should listen to Homemade Food.