¡Cuba! Recipes and Stories from the Cuban Kitchen

Photographer Goldberg, art director Kuhn, and food writer Eddy made three visits to Havana and its environs over a five-year period, feasting on the local cuisine and meeting the proud cooks and farmers of the area. They now report back on their sightseeing, with scores of photos and 75 recipes in tow. Among the many interesting insights into Cuba’s culinary identity are a look at the Santeria religion, which advises that animals should be appreciated “from conception to consumption,” recognition of the black market as an essential source for dessert ingredients, and a brief history of Havana’s Chinatown, once the largest in Latin America, now down to a single Chinese chef. An accompanying egg roll recipe calls for hot chiles, chorizo, and black beans. Other treats spread across the 10 chapters include ropa vieja sliders from a section on sandwiches, ribs with guava BBQ sauce, and a shrimp and scallop ceviche. Caffeine and rum duke it out in the beverage chapter, featuring those two classic quaffs, café cubano and the mojito. (Sept.)