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Tiki Central / Tiki Drinks and Food

Polynesian Cook Book (If you can find it)

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I thought I'd share one of my favorite Island style cook books, as I think the people here would fully appreciate it.

It is the "Pacific and Southeast Asian Cooking" volume from the Time Life "Foods of the World" series originally published in 1970. Library of Congress Number 70-114231 I have only ever found it in thrift stores and my first copy that I found in an old store room at the St. Paul Radisson Hotel along with the spiral bound recipe book that accompanied each volume of the series.

This volume has a green cover (each volume had a different color cover) and a picture of a coconut and some Satays served on a banana leaf. I will try to post pictures soon. Any book from this series is worth buying for the simple reason that the recipes and methods are authentic and haven't been westernized too much. The methods are very clearly explained and photographed. They are written for the committed home cook looking to recreate exotic cuisines.

If you do find this book in your searches, make sure you don't miss the little spiral bound recipe book! I often find the recipe books on a completely different shelf than the large hardcover main book at thrift stores. If you're lucky, the two with be fastened together with a rubber band or tape in the same location. The recipe book contains around 125 recipes, including drinks (scorpion, Mai Tai, Banana Cow). I have yet to find a bad or untested recipe in these books and I've been using it for about 10 years.

K
Kahu posted on Thu, Aug 14, 2008 1:38 PM

http://www.amazon.com/Foods-World-Rafael-Steinberg/dp/B000IYEFP4

seems like it is on amazon, pretty cheap too.

That's the one, but the tricky part is getting the recipe book that comes with it. Not all the things photographed for the book have recipes in the main book, only in the companion book.

One of the sellers says the recipe book is also available. Another describes the conditions of both, clearly indicating that both are part of the deal. It looks like the ± $20 books are the 2-vol set and the 67¢ ones are probably not.

book is apparently not spelled with a zero...

[ Edited by: The Gnomon 2008-08-16 06:46 ]

I have the book but not the spiral bound recipe book!

Pages: 1 4 replies