A Wonderful Book

Here is a terrific book for those of you who love Africa (especially Ethiopia) as much as I.

While reading one of my "Traditional Home" magazines, I saw a page devoted to a new cook book titled, "The Soul of a New Cuisine" by Marcus Samuellson.

Marcus was orphaned in a tuberculosis epidemic raging through his native Ethiopia when he was just three years old. After finding shelter in a Swedish field hospital, he and his young sister were adopted by a young Swedish couple. He started to learn how to cook at the age of six or seven. He studied at the Culinary Institute in Gotenborg and at various places in Switzerland and Austria before taking an eight-month internship at Aquavit in New York City. He then took a position at Georges Blanc in Lyon, France, a three-star Michelin restaurant. At twenty-four, Marcus became Executive Chef of Aquavit and received a three-star rating from the New York Times.

On one of Marcus' recent trips to Ethiopia, he had one of the most meaningful experiences of his life. He always thought that he had been orphaned, but his sister discovered their biological father. His name is Tsegie and he was still alive. Marcus met him in April 2005 in the small village where he was born and his father still lives as a priest and farmer along with eight half brothers and sisters he he never knew he had.

This book is the result of his many visits to Africa and contains 204 recipes and 258 color photos which are enriched with personal and political history; as in his many condiments and sauces, the balance is right. While he stresses the diversity and bounty of the second-largest continent, he repeatedly describes African cuisine as poor people's cooking, crafted with simple tools and necessarily emphasizing starches, vegetables and big flavors. Whether it's rosemary for Honey Bread or turmeric, ginger and cinnamon in his Vegetable Samosas, herbs and spices are always sauteed in oil or tossed in a hot dry pan, to intensify and mellow. He even proposes toasting the cinnamon for the whipped cream accompanying his Ethiopian Chocolate Rum Cake. The recipe for the cake is typical: the batter is prepared in a single bowl, mixed with a spoon, and bakes up moist and gingerbread-like, with great keeping properties. Toasting the cinnamon takes seconds and is impressive in the complexity it delivers.