Paladares: Recipes Inspired by the Private Restaurants of Cuba

Description

Cuba is experiencing a cultural and culinary renaissance. With a recent influx of investment and tourism flooding the country, paladares (private restaurants) are on the forefront of change. This is the first book to tell the story of Cuban cuisine through the lens of the restaurant owners, chefs, farmers, and patrons, while examining the implications of food short ages, tourism, and international influences of a country experiencing a paradigm shift in cooking. Filled with 150 authentic and modern recipes adapted for the home cook, from classics like Ham and Cheese Empanadas to Pumpkin Flan with Spinach and Saffron, and 350 vivid color photographs, Paladares brings the country's spirited cooking into your own kitchen.

Anya von Bremzen is a James Beard Award-winning cookbook author, food historian, and travel writer. Megan Fawn Schlow is a photographer, recipe developer, and food stylist whose work has appeared in the New York Times, Bon App\u00e9tit, and other publications. They both live in New York City.

"Filled with intimate sketches of the people behind paladares, and beautifully photographed food you can't wait to make, Anya von Bremzen and Megan Fawn Schlow capture the surreal and confounding contradictions of present-day Cuba with remarkable insight. Your mind will race ahead to imagine the possibilities for an island forever on the verge."--Ana Sofia Pelaez "author of The Cuban Table: A Celebration of Food, Flavors, and History" "This amazing cookbook shares the challenges and triumphs of some of the most innovative and improvising chefs in the world. Through the ingredients and techniques, you can begin to understand more about this incredible country and its people."--Jose Andres "chef and owner, minibar by Jose Andres and ThinkFoodGroup" "Von Bremzen...has a gift for illuminating the irrepressible humanity in communist food cultures, and her storytelling here adds deep nuance like a good sofrita in a pot of black beans."-- "The Philadelphia Inquirer" "Paladares captures the spirit of the country."--Zarela Martinez "James Beard Award-winning author and chef" "Cuban food authorities call their home 'this country of inventors, ' and this exhaustively researched and gorgeously photographed book reveals how necessity sparked culinary magic. . . . I hope this book inspires greater understanding between the United States and Cuba . . . I know it will inspire us all to get cooking!"--Ted Allen "host of Chopped on Food Network" "Gaining kitchen-door access to paladares, the privately owned restaurants that must navigate both the government and a crazy black market to survive, seems like a cheat code. It's like discovering a secret passageway inside a secret passageway."--Drew Lazor, author of Session Cocktails: Low-Alcohol Drinks for Any Occasion "New York Magazine's The Strategist" "In Paladares, Anya von Bremzen and Megan Fawn Schlow show us the unique intersection of cultures, history, and geography that define the home cooking of Cuba as elevated within a closed-door restaurant. Illicit, familiar, and exotic, these recipes stand on their own but also together to capture a moment in time when the paladar is ushering in a new set of standards by which Cuban cuisine will come to be known."--Alex Raij "chef and restauranteur (Txikito, La Vara, El Quinto Pino)"