A Note on France and Italy vs. Everywhere Else

My goal here was not to find the most esoteric recipes I could. On the contrary, it was to find the most common recipes in the countries that are underrepresented in most cookbooks. I’ve always been fascinated by the cooking of Asia (I learned the basics of Indian and Japanese cuisines before tackling those of French or Italian), and I like to think this book acknowledges how much the world of food has changed: Asian food is now—finally—considered the equal of European food, something that was definitely not true thirty years ago. At that time even Italian food was considered exotic, and, for the most part “international” meant “French.” French food was the epitome of good cooking, and Asian food was something most Americans experienced at their local Chinese restaurant.