Reading Food : Let’s Read Out: Cookbook Stores

Most large bookstores offer a good selection of contemporary cookbooks. But if you want something unusual you will have to seek out the specialty shops scattered throughout the city.

The reward is the discovery of exciting books that can open the doors to new worlds of cookery--books that would never be found in the mainstream of American publishing.

Take, for example, a Vietnamese cookbook published in Madras. Or a little book called “Diciembre en La Tradicion Popular,” which recounts Mexican Christmas traditions and recipes. Or a book in French on Moroccan-Jewish food. Or a cookery guide for Spanish bachelors.

These are a few of the interesting volumes that turned up on a tour of seven specialty bookshops, ranging in location from downtown Los Angeles to Westwood. The shops visited represent only a handful of the sources available to culinary treasure hunters. Other places to scout include ethnic markets, import shops, thrift shops and, of course, used-book stores.

The Vietnamese cookbook from India was on the shelves at The Cook’s Library, which is the only all-cookbook store in Los Angeles. Ellen Rose, who opened this shop on West 3rd Street in May, 1989, says she carries about 3,000 titles. In addition to new books from major publishers, Rose stocks small-press books, community cookbooks, dictionaries used by food professionals, some foreign-language books and hard-to-find and out-of-print books.

The best-selling category at present is Italian, Rose said. Ethnic cookbooks do very well, especially those dealing with Afghani, Ethiopian and other cuisines about which little has been written. Caribbean and Cuban books are also in demand.

A cozy shop that invites browsing, The Cook’s Library hosts appearances by authors and publishes a newsletter.

The Cook’s Library, 8373 West 3rd St., Los Angeles; (213) 655-3141. Open Tuesday through Saturday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Cookbooks published in Mexico are on sale for as little as $1.50 at the Libreria Mexico on Sunset Boulevard. For that price you can choose from a series of slim pamphlets on basic dishes. And for $2.25, there are tiny booklets of recipes from Oaxaca, Yucatan or Puebla.

An example of contemporary Mexican cookbooks is “El Libro de Recetas de Cocina de Mama Grande” by Martha Figueroa de Duenas. Mama Grande, whose recipes are featured in this compilation, is the author’s great-grandmother. Published earlier this year by Editorial Diana in Mexico City and selling for $24.95, the book contains such recipes as salt cod with almonds, chicken in avocado leaves, tuna empanadas and pineapple tamales.

The book on Mexican Christmas customs, which has a charming cover sketch of a child breaking a pinata , was put together by a government agency to promote the country’s cultural heritage. Short passages on pinatas, the posadas celebration, the Nativity scene, Christmas Eve, Christmas dinner and other year-end events are followed by typical Christmas recipes gathered in competitions conducted in Mexico City.

In specialty stores, an unusual book such as this may be the only copy in stock rather than a regularly available selection. This lends an aspect of challenge to the cookbook search.

Libreria Mexico, 1632 Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles; (213) 250-4835. Open daily from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.

La Cite in Westwood has long been a gathering spot for Francophiles. Although French-language books prevail, there are also restaurant guides and some cookbooks in English. Highlights include a series of books by celebrity chefs published by Editions Robert Laffont of Paris. Chefs in this French-language series include Alain Chapel, Jacques Maximin, Roger Verge, Georges Blanc, Pierre and Michel Troisgros, Alain Senderens, Michel Guerard and Marc Meneau.

The book of Moroccan-style Jewish food, “La Cuisine Juive Marocaine” by Rivka Levy-Mellul, comes from Quebec. The store also has a supply of books on Polish, Lebanese, Iranian, Tunisian and French regional cuisines published in Paris.

One of the most charming volumes here is “Le Pain Retrouve: 30 Pains et Leurs Recettes,” a compendium of classic French breads and their recipes by J.Y. Guinard and P. Lesjean. Full-page color photos of crusty country loaves, baguettes and other favorites accompany the text.

Although the French are serious about dining, they can also laugh at it. Witness “La Table,” a collection of cartoons depicting chefs, restaurants, cooks and diners in any imaginable food situation. Credit for this book goes to the appropriately named Ha! (Humoristes Associes).

La Cite, 2306 Westwood Blvd., West Los Angeles, (213) 475-0658. Open Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

The Spanish and European Bookstore on Wilshire Boulevard, which deals primarily in Spanish-language books, has a vast cookbook selection. Shelves display Mexican classics, books from Argentina, contemporary Spanish works and a few cookbooks published in the United States. American contributions include “The Bilingual Kitchen,” a Spanish-English introduction to American cuisine from Glendale, California. The store stocks quite a few Italian cookbooks and also has Greek and Mexican cookbooks from Spain. Purchasers of “Mexican Cookery” by Elvira Martinez and Jose A. Fidalgo can take their choice of a Spanish or an English edition.

Shoppers who want the most for their money can buy “Las Mil Mejores Recetas de Cocina” by Maria Pilar, a thousand-recipe cookbook that comes from Barcelona. Those who don’t read Spanish can try “Making It in the Kitchen Spanish Style” by Hannah Milstein Shapiro, published in Madrid.

The guide for starving bachelors, by the way, is “Cocina de Urgencia para Hombres Solos” (Emergency Cooking for Single Men) by Jose Maria de Mena, published by Ediciones Mensajero in Bilbao.

Spanish and European Bookstore, 3117 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, (213) 739-8899. Open Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Imported books can be very expensive, and prices run as high as $125 at the Bernard Hamel Spanish Book Corp. on the Westside. Books in this pricey category are the hefty “La Cocina Espanola, El Libro de Oro de La Gastronomia” (Spanish Cooking, the Golden Book of Gastronomy) and “Cocina Practica Para el Ama de Casa” (Practical Cooking for the Housewife), which features step-by-step color photographs.

In contrast, the “Gran Libro de la Cocina Argentina” (The Big Book of Argentinian Cooking) seems cheap at $70. Wonderful old classics now out in new editions are “El Libro de Dona Petrona” in a 1989 edition from Buenos Aires and “La Cocina de Dona Adela” by Adela Romo de Escamilla, also reissued in 1989. The latter book was first published in 1944 in Mexico City. It’s a good source of recipes for such typical Mexican dishes as chipotle enchiladas, squash flower quesadillas, and guajolote en mole poblano (turkey mole).

Bernard Hamel Spanish Book Corp., 10977 Santa Monica Blvd., Los Angeles; (213) 475-0453. Open daily from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.

You have to know where to find Philippine Expressions (Filipiniana Bookshop). Opening off a corridor inside a building in Beverly Hills, it is not visible from the street. But the effort to locate this bookshop is worthwhile because it houses a remarkable selection of books from the Philippines.

Owner Linda Maria Nietes has a large supply of cookbooks, many of them modestly published in paperback. But she also stocks the lavishly illustrated and hard-to-find “Philippine Hospitality” by Lily Gamboa O’Boyle and Reynaldo G. Alejandro, which sells for $55.

Other works range from scholarly essays to practical books that interpret the cuisine for Americans. Examples of the former are “Food and Philippine Culture” by Esther Manuel Cabotaje and “Sarap,” a collection of essays on Philippine food by Doreen G. Fernandez and Edilberto N. Alegre. “Filipino Cooking Here and Abroad” by Eleanor Laquian and Irene Sobrevinas was published in Manila but is an excellent book for the United States. Others are “Cooking Filipino Dishes in America” by Dominga L. Asuncion and “Philippine Cooking in America” by Marilyn Ranada Donato, a dietitian.

Books by Nora Daza, one of the most respected cooking authorities in the Philippines, are available here. And Nietes has several cookbooks by Filipinas in the restaurant business. Fe Luz Suarez, proprietor of The Nipa Hut in Gardena, and Mabel Low have collaborated on “Woks and Pans,” and Sony Robles-Florendo of an East Coast restaurant-owning family has written “Signature Dishes of the Philippines.”

Philippine Expressions (Filipiniana Bookshop), Suite 11, 8685 Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Hills; (213) 652-8869. Open Tuesday through Friday from 2 to 6 p.m. and by appointment.

If you want to make sushi, practice Sichuan cookery or try your hand at kimchee , you’ll find a suitable guide at the Kinokuniya book store in the New Otani Hotel in Little Tokyo.

There are several Korean cookbooks here and a variety of Chinese books, some published in Asia and some in the United States. In an interesting culinary exchange, “Japanese Cuisine” was written by a Chinese, Chi Chen Shiu-Lee, and published in Taipei, while “The Essentials of Chinese Cooking” is by Sumi Hatano, a Japanese woman who teaches Chinese cookery in Tokyo.

Other books deal with tofu, miso, making soba noodles, macrobiotic cookery and Asian health food. The large stock of Japanese books includes the practical “Quick and Easy Japanese Cooking for Everyone” by Miyoko Sakai and Motoko Abe, published in 1989 by The Japan Times. With this book in hand, you are set to master broiled pork with miso, fish teriyaki, yakitori, sukiyaki and many other popular dishes. And for a fine example of food as art, check “Ekiben, the Art of the Japanese Box Lunch,” published by Chronicle Books in San Francisco.

Kinokuniya Book Stores of America, New Otani Store, Suite 12, 110 S. Los Angeles St., Los Angeles; (213) 687-4447. Open daily from 10:30 a.m. to 7 p.m.