Cuisines of Hidden Mexico: A Culinary Journey to Guerrero and Michoacan

An offshoot of a 1994 public television documentary about the people, history and culture of Guerrero and Michoacan, this collection by the show's coproducers has the air of an afterthought. Among the 75 indigenous recipes are plenty of interesting dishes, such as Picaditas de Venado, a dish of venison steaks with tomatillos, and Guerrero's famous Pozole, a soup of hominy and pig parts. The writing, however, is frequently clumsy and the recipes often confusing (in the recipe for Atole de Grano, it is not clear how many pots of water are boiling at once). While details about the filming are often interesting, descriptions of markets visited and meals eaten read as though they were lifted from a detailed diary and lack immediacy here. Experienced cooks eager to create dishes rarely seen in the U.S. and willing to track down unusual ingredients (many recipes call for hard-to-find items, e.g., huitlacoche, a trufflelike corn fungus, or iguana) will most appreciate this effort. (Dec.)