LEMONADE SPRINGS

The morning mail brought me yet another book club offering, this one called the New York Times International Cookbook. It is an insult — not to me, because I’m not going to keep it — but to those people who bought it thinking they would actually learn something from it.

The people who buy international cookbooks presumably want to learn new methods and techniques for cooking the same old foods, and they want to learn how to use new ingredients.

Comparing the foods people eat and how they prepare them is fascinating, but most international cookbooks are rip-offs, and this one is no exception. Instead of giving authentic recipes which show the similarities and differences throughout the world, international cookbook author’s reduce everything to some least common denominator — usually American. Who wants to learn how to cook Americanized Ceylonese food?