New Book: Rice and Beans

One of our new books on display at the Eddie Koiki Mabo Library at present is Rice and beans: A unique dish in a hundred places, edited by Richard Wilk and Livia Barbosa.

This is a book about... rice and beans.

The book contains a number of essays about the cultural significance of "rice and beans" dishes (particularly with regard to South American, Caribbean and Central American cultures) and the history and origins of such dishes.

While each essay is quite academic, they also contain little gems like poems and recipes.  You won't find many recipes in the book, but certainly more than we have in most of our other Social Science textbooks.

Some of the recipes are quite elaborate, others are simpler.  Take, for example, this recipe from page 259:

Boiled Rice (serves 8-10)
2 cups rice
3 1/2 cups water
Salt
1 tablespoon butter (optional)
Put all of the ingredients in a pot, bring to a boil and let boil for 2 minutes.  Reduce heat to simmer and cover.  Simmer for 20 minutes.  Remove from heat and let sit for 5 or 6 minutes.  Serve with red beans.

You'll be please to know the recipe for red beans (on page 257) is a little more elaborate.

We have two copies of this book - including one available for 2 Day Loan, which is currently located in Cairns.