Other Recommended Cookbooks

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Pat L. Dayrit: Favorite Filipino Recipes 1986. This cookbook represents what Filipinos eat - a potpourri of Spanish, American, Chinese, French, Japanese, Italian etc - reflecting the varied cultural influences that reached the Philippines. An earlier edition also became my bible of Philippine cooking when I was living in New Zealand as a post-graduate student. So I guess this is quite a solid cookbook.

Nora Daza and Micahela Fenix: Nora V. Daza: A Culinary Life. Behind most of the recipes in this book are stories of people, places, and events, all of which helped Daza shape her craft and views on Filipino cuisine.

Another recommended book is Filipino American Food Practices by Virginia S. Claudio.

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From Lyn Francisco:

• For those vegetarians out there (Filipino vegetarians! Rare species, I know!), Madhur Jaffrey has made some pretty acceptable modifications of Filipino favorites and made them into some vegetarian diseshes, with help from various Filipinos whom she made sure to credit. Some examples that turn up in this book are pinakbet, ukoy, ampalaya with itlog, meatless mongo ginataan with rice and monggo beans, puto, sawsawang kamatis, etc. The name of the cookbook is: Madhur Jaffrey's World-Of-The-East Vegetarian Cooking.

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• Another great cookbook which has a section on Filipino cuisine is Charmaine Solomon's The Complete Asian Cookbook. She obtained help in writing this section from a group of Filipinos who live in Australia. This book is beautifully illustrated and makes all the food look so delicious!

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• Another book which I used before I came across the two cookbooks above is one my mother brought from the Philippines called Recipes of the Philippines from Enriqueta David-Perez. The ingredients lists I think are okay but the methodologies seem a bit archaic to me. I generally never follow the recipes in this book but just use the ingredients list and improvise as I go along.