Ricelands_The_World_of_South-east_Asian_Food - pdf [a0b10c110]

Ricelands: The World of South-east Asian Food

Pad thai, pho, bao: the cuisines of Southeast Asia have ardent enthusiasts far beyond their native lands, and are now among the most-consumed dishes in the world. But the familiar take-out menus and thriving storefronts rest atop a compelling history of food, culture, and modernity. Award-winning photographer and writer Michael Freeman now offers here an all-encompassing guide to the cuisines of eight Southeast Asian countries.

Ricelands takes the reader on a colorful and engaging tour of these popular tourist destinations through the richly layered cultures surrounding the various food traditions. Traveling across the landscapes of Thailand, Vietnam, Burma, Cambodia, Malaysia, Laos, Indonesia, and the Philippines, Freeman explores the origins of their respective cuisines, the defining characteristics of authentic dishes, and the evolution of the cuisines as they entered foreign cultures. From birds’ nests gathered in Thailand’s coastal caves to the less familiar dishes of Burma and Cambodia to the pungent durian fruit (and Westerners’ often aghast reactions), the author unearths unexpected treasures and tantalizing facts about Southeast Asia and its social history. The book also examines the cooking techniques, complex spices, and agricultural economies that underpin the countries’ food cultures, and considers how the informal nature of Southeast Asian eating fits into the rhythms of modern-day living.

Vibrantly illustrated and elegantly conceived, Ricelands takes us into the heart of tropical Asia and the delicious foods that define it the world over.

Product Details

Language: English
ISBN-10: 1861893787
ISBN-13: 978-1861893789

About the Author

Biography

Michael Freeman, professional photographer and author, with more than 100 book titles to his credit, was born in England in 1945, took a Masters in geography at Brasenose College, Oxford University, and then worked in advertising in London for six years. He made the break from there in 1971 to travel up the Amazon with two secondhand cameras, and when Time-Life used many of the pictures extensively in the Amazon volume of their World's Wild Places series, including the cover, they encouraged him to begin a full-time photographic career.

Since then, working for editorial clients that include all the world's major magazines, and notably the Smithsonian Magazine (with which he has had a 30-year association, shooting more than 40 stories), Freeman's reputation has resulted in more than 100 books published. Of these, he is author as well as photographer, and they include more than 40 books on the practice of photography - for this photographic educational work he was awarded the Prix Louis Philippe Clerc by the French Ministry of Culture. He is also responsible for the distance-learning courses on photography at the UK's Open College of the Arts.

Freeman's books on photography have been translated into fifteen languages, and are available on other Amazon international sites.

Reviews

This is a highly unusual food book. Freeman is a photographer, and uses many of his photographs in the book. The photos show food, rice in the field, people enjoying the food, and so on. The photography is excellent, all of the shots are good, some of them superb.

He examines the food of Southeast Asia, not just the cuisine of fancy restaurants, but at country food such as crispy tarantulas. These are illustrated and it somehow gives this book a more authentic feel. Chapter 4 is "Wild about Wild" and looks at wildlife--like the tarantulas--as food. Chapter 5 looks at Southeast Asian food as a crossroads of world elements--for example the enthusiasm for chili peppers originally from the Americans and brought to Asia by European traders (or perhaps by pirates, adventurers or missionaries).

An intriguing part is the account of the various approaches to fermented fish and seafood.

Freeman has traveled widely, so the book has a feel something like a cook's pilgrimage, a lot of first-person text. I found the book to be a delightful read. He does have some remarks about less delightful things such as the horrors of Cambodia's near past.