Yucatán: Recipes from a Culinary Expedition (William and Bettye Nowlin Series in Art, History, and Cultur)

*Starred Review* This is not just a cookbook; it’s also a labor of love that well documents places, people, and, yes, food on Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula. In fact, one south-of-the-border culinary maven who has blessed Sterling’s endeavor (through TV appearances) is Rick Bayless. Is there really a difference between Yucatan menus and dishes from other Mexican states? Sterling points to the extensive use of recados (curries) and alcaparrados (capers, raisins, olives, and almonds) as well as influences from Spain and Portugal, France and Holland, and Lebanon, Cuba, and Africa to create such dishes as sopa de lima and achiote. The more than 275 recipes are gathered in groupings based on the heartland, the coast, the cities, and the villages, populated, too, with excellent photographs of many Yucatan natives (meet 73-year-old Hernán Perrera Novelo, who still farms his plot). Ingredients are featured with a description and their culinary uses, including both familiar and indigenous, such as avocado, cashew apples, oscillated turkey, and lobster, to mention a handful. It will be difficult not to turn on all the burners and oven to try pilikanes, turkey in maize, fish-head soup, pan dulce, or crispy fried pork skin. –Barbara Jacobs

“Lavishly produced, with hundreds of photographs, Yucatan is part travelogue, part history, part encyclopedia, written in an unexpectedly casual, engaging style.” (The New York Times Book Review 2014-06-01)

“Endorsements from Mexican culinary expert Diana Kennedy come few and far between, so Sterling, the founder of Los Dos Cooking School, must know what he’s doing. At 500-plus pages and coffee-table size, the book is sure to be a long-term, definitive reference guide. ” (Washington Post 2014-07-25)

“Beyond Sterling’s encyclopedic and meticulously-researched knowledge of Yucatecan food, his love for and connection to the region and its fare are evident on every page; it is rare to find such humble passion and vigor in a volume that is so comprehensive and informational.” (Saveur)

“David Sterling’s Yucatán would be a remarkable book in any year and sets a high bar for future aspirants to The Art of Eating Prize. It’s an impressively synoptic portrait of a little-known region and its rich food culture, the product of years of immersive experience and study, whose genial prose, copious photographs, and approachable recipes work together beautifully to communicate the vitality of Yucatecan cooking.” (Art of Eating Prize 2015-03-02)

“Starting the book knowing nothing about the Yucatan, except that it looks like a nice place to go on vacation, I quickly realized I was in the hands of an expert. I was easily drawn into the narrative of this ideologically isolated peninsula, even when that narrative had nothing whatsoever to do with food. History, geography, biology – you’ll get a little bit of everything with this book. Of course, eventually it all ties back to food and cooking, and I don’t know if there was a single recipe in this book that I wasn’t interested in trying.” (Katie at the Kitchen Door 2014-05-14)

“Sterling does a great job as a culinary travel guide, offering the inside scoop on the people, places, and ingredients of one of the world’s greatest regional cuisines.” (Albuquerque’s Local IQ 2014-05-01)

“David Sterling must have taken great joy in putting this book together, for it reflects tireless research that was surely driven by an intense desire to learn as much as possible about the cuisine and the culinary traditions of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula.” (Mexconnect 2014-06-01)

“Whether you want to learn how to cook this cuisine or just want to take a trip (without the airplane ride) this book is worth the effort to consume.” (Portland Book Review 2014-06-24)

“David Sterling has possibly penned the reader of the year with his six-and-a-half pound, 576-page Yucatán: Recipes from a Culinary Expedition, surely the most authoritative tome that land’s cuisine has ever seen.” (Star News Online 2014-07-18)

“In the lavishly illustrated book, Sterling, who runs a cooking school in Mexico, pulls together the various ethnic and cultural strands that make up Yucatecan cooking—influences from France, Spain and Portugal, Lebanon and elsewhere in the Middle East, Africa and the Caribbean.” (The Los Angeles Times 2015-04-24)