The Mexican Vegetarian Cookbook

The variety in this meat-free Mexican cuisine compendium from Arronte, a coordinator at the Mexican Gastronomic Conservatory, certainly impresses: a breakfast chapter offers two types of chilaquiles; a spinach, cheese, and soy bacon omelette; and quesadillas with zucchini blossoms. Lunch features crêpes with funky huitlacoche and queso fresco and tortillas robed in spicy chocolate sauce. A brief introduction casts the collection as a bid to banish the image of Mexican cuisine as “greasy, unhealthy and unbalanced,” but there’s nothing ascetic about baked artichokes stuffed with goat cheese and pecans or puffy fried gorditas, both found in a chapter of surprisingly substantial snacks. Salads are hearty, such as a mix of wild asparagus and hearts of palm. Desserts include a tomatillo tart, several types of flan, and “healthy” French toast coated in oats. Recipes are workmanlike and incorporate copious information—region of origin, cooking time, preparation time, and indication of gluten-free or other dietary restriction status—and while the photos look delicious, the lack headnotes and chapters free of introductory text leave readers to puzzle out the difference between, for instance, platos fuertes and entradas. Information about ingredients is found in an encyclopedic glossary in the back. There is plenty fresh and original to choose for a feast, but readers should expect a reference rather than a personalized guide. (Oct.)