The Book of Latin American Cooking is an exotic, exciting and uncomplicated cookbook that comes with a fascinating culinary introduction and notes on all the essential ingredients. With a sudden rash of Latin American restaurants opening in London and other major cities, such as Ceviche and Lima and the chain of Las Iguanas, the British are at last getting to grips with the cooking of Latin America; a sophisticated cuisine that is as old and as complex as any in the world. First published in 1969 and written by one of the first scholar cooks, The Book of Latin American Cooking is regarded as a classic and one of only a handful of books to examine this much underappreciated cuisine. The collision of civilisations that occurred after the Spanish conquest, and the adoption by the colonisers of so many new foods such as the chilli, the pepper, the tomato, the potato, chocolate, French beans and avocados, down to the very staple, maize, means that Latin American cookery is a hybrid of infinite and unique combinations. Elisabeth Lambert Ortiz was the very first writer to encourage British and American enthusiasm for the food of Latin America and the Caribbean. She introduces the reader to the subtle marriages of texture and flavour which distinguish the cooking of South America from Peru to Chile. Elisabeth Lambert Ortiz was one of the leading cookbook authors of her generation and wrote numerous cookery books including The New Complete Book of Mexican Cooking and The Complete Book of Caribbean Cooking. She was a culinary anthropologist and food historian, principal consultant for the Time Life Foods of the World series, as well as a regular contributor to Gourmet magazine. She died in New York in 2003 aged 88.