The Mexican Vegetarian Cookbook: 400 authentic everyday recipes for the home cook by Margarita Carrillo Arronte

Margarita Carrillo Arronte’s Mexico: The Cookbook sold more than 200,000 copies globally. That much-adored 2014 tome now has a companion volume, The Mexican Vegetarian Cookbook, showcasing vegetarian recipes from every (incredibly varied) region of Mexico. These are touted in the press material as “authentic,” a word casually tossed about these days. Authentic how one wonders? In her introduction, the author explains: “The further we go in the history of the region, the more vegetarian the roots of the cuisine become.” To wit: This is no token veggie-come-lately compendium based on cancelling the animal from delicious dishes we know and love. These recipes go much deeper, based as they are upon the endemic ingredients that Mexico has generously shared with the rest of the world: fruits, vegetables, legumes, seeds, edible flowers, and so on. The book’s introduction alone is worth the price: You get a history lesson in the ancestral roots of global ingredients (thank you, Mexico) leading gracefully to 400 mind-bending recipes. These are amplified with the most beautiful photography and annotated with genuinely helpful icons indicating “one-pot” or “five-ingredient” dishes, as well as gluten-free, dairy-free, and vegan — not to mention the very helpful “30 minutes or less.” Practical, elucidating, and beautiful, this is a cookbook of rare quality.

—DICK SNYDER

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