Hot Sour Salty Sweet
A culinary journey through south-east asia
Every once in a while you are fortunate enough to come across something so great it has a lasting impression on you and it inspires you to try and emulate it.
I have a long held obsession with books, particularly food and travel and especially anything connected to Asia. I remember a bookseller asking my mother if she thought a book on Zen Buddhism would be suitable for the twelve year old buying it. Mrs Collins said it would be fine and I have the book to this day. As a boy I practised shotokan karate and became fascinated by the history of the fighting arts of Asia and from there I developed my love of the food, land and people.
The majority of my books on food are aimed at the professional, the recipes and methods are complicated and not worth trying at home. That said I have some excellent books which are geared more towards the home enthusiast but can be developed into restaurant preperations.
Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid are husband and wife writers and photographers based in Toronto, Canada who have spent years travelling throughout China, South-East Asia and the Indian Subcontinent documenting their travel and eating experiences into fabulous books.
Hot Sour Salty Sweet is a fantastic ‘coffee table’ book full of great writing, recipes and photographs. It is without doubt one of my favourite books, the pages leap out at you and make you want to cook, taste and travel. Read about the food culture of Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, Burma, Cambodia and Southern China and I guarantee you will be hooked.
I write this post as a thanks to Jeffrey and Naomi for their inspiring work whilst hoping Karen Coates and Jerry Redfearn of www.ramblingspoon.com read this and hopefully pushes them into doing something similar. I’ve told you before, Karen. You know it makes sense!
Published by Artisan Books ISBN: 1-57965-114-3