THE ART OF SOUTH AMERICAN COOKING

Squid ceviche, wild-turkey escabäche with figs, seafood tamale, quinoa chowder, tomatillo gazpacho, rabbit in chocolate sauce, a roundly flavored sweet pepper-dried chili-apple-hazelnut sauce to serve on potatoes, and a whole string of wonderful potato dishes: These are a few of the splendid, spicy, South American dishes that Peruvian born-and-raised Rojas-Lombardi, now a prominent New York chef and food authority, makes available in this genuine contribution to our culinary repertoire. True, some of the items used might be unavailable in many North American areas, but many dishes (among them a spicy marinated pork roast) achieve a distinctive effect without exotic ingredients. And Rojas-Lombardi's introduction, ranging from the Incas' ingenious irrigation methods to today's 30-some potato varieties and corn kernels the size of cherry tomatoes, provides an informative overview in a very few lively pages.