Tacos- If You Don't Mind Pretension or Provocations

I chose to review Tacos: Recipes and Provocations by Alex Stupak because my husband and I love tacos and he is always impressed by food that seems a little more authentic. When I looked at the cover, the word "provocations" made me pause- it sounds pretentious and I wasn't quite sure how it fit with tacos.  The good: the recipes and photos are interesting enough without being too difficult for the most part. The bad: the book is pretentious.

Tortillas: If you are interested in making your own tacos from absolute scratch (including grinding your own masa), this is the book for you. Although he scorns flour tortillas as an "American" distortion of Mexican food, he also has a recipe for them. 
Salsa: There is a salsa for every occasion in this book, including tomato based and salsa verde. 
Tacos: Chicken Tacos with Kale and Salsa Verde sounds delicious. Chicken Tacos with Chilmole sounds interesting. Pineapple Tacos with a thin slice of lardo (where would you find that?) and Beer-Braised Tongue Tacos are not ones I would even be interested in trying. 

I had never heard of Alex Stupak prior to this book, but within a couple of paragraphs, I could tell that he had spent some time with notable chefs. His tone is a bit arrogant and he is (what I would consider) a food snob. He wasted no space referencing his time as a notable pastry chef at Alinea or wd-50. This all wouldn't be so hard to read without that word: "provocations." I believe he used the word to describe" food for thought", but for me the word was described as in the dictionary "action or speech that makes someone annoyed or angry, especially deliberately" for this is how I felt when I was reading it. Throughout the book Stupak continued to tell readers how Americans view Mexican culture and Mexican food.

p. 14 "Our proximity to Mexico means that, over time, its cuisine has become familiar; we've taken a kind of ownership of it." 
p. 15 "... about the way we value- or undervalue- ethnic cuisines." 
p. 88 "When you get into the more involved preparations here, you really start to see how Americans are still limited in the way we understand and characterize certain Mexican foods." 
p. 112 "Of the holy trinity of American proteins- beef, chicken and pork- beef is the least consumed in Mexico. And yet here in the United States, our revisionist version of that country's cuisine casts it in a starring role." 

At this point I was sick of hearing how "Americans" think. Stereotyping Americans is the same as stereotyping Mexican food. Stupak's arrogance really turned me off from this book. Also, Mexicans are Americans too. 

I received this book from Blogging for Books, but obviously the opinions are my own.