Criollo: A Taste of Venezuela

I really like this book. The people writing such negative reviews about a reasonably priced cookbook with good color photos of homemade family recipes must be very disagreeable. Also, you can’t expect precise serving amounts on family recipes. If you like homemade Venezuelan food, buy this book. I seriously don’t get the negativity and I’m glad I bought this book despite it.

I wish Fernando huge success! I read about him and he seems like an awesome guy and I want to support him. However, what was with the absolutely crap image quality? None of the photos had clarity, it seems like Amazon did a terrible job of printing the book.I was amazed to learn that this isn't a professionally printed book at all, it's just a guy with a dream and some really wonderful context; honestly Amazon should upgrade the printing quality for him for free. As a book, it's more like a hobby project and not actually published. I'd pay $4 in the future, and make sure Amazon doesn't get a cut. If Amazon actually made high quality paper and print photo quality I'd pay full price.

It is a lovely book, I really like it. It has nice pictures and each recipe has a story. It allows me to know more about Venezuelan culture. I received the book in good condition

I grew up in a Venezuelan oil camp and I get so homesick for the food. This is a recipe book that captures what I recall what Venezuelan food should taste like. This guy learned well from his mother.

The photos and story style descriptions in this cookbook were warm and homey. They really do remind me of the intent of the author, sitting in his mother's kitchen. The recipes I tried did taste quite authentic. I grew up in VZ and the flavours are pretty close, taking into consideration the North American ingredient allowances. In larger cities people probably have access to harina pan. The critical flaw with this book is, as someone else mentioned, the author needs a bit more practice writing recipes. There are no serving quantities for one thing. Chicha and guasacaca for more like 8 people/entertaing than for a small sampling. Some of the individual recipe steps could use a bit more specific direction.