The Flavours of Vietnam Cookbook Giveaway!

he says:

I love cookbooks! I go through different phases using certain cookbooks all the time and then neglecting them for long periods of time. I love it when something triggers me to dust it off and rediscover it again. It's a testament to a great cookbook that it keeps coming back to reveal more layers as you progress along your journey of discovery of a particular cuisine.

On of my favourite cookbooks in this regard is the very understated The Flavours of Vietnam by Meera Freeman and Le Van Nhan. This great little book is not a huge production, it has only a few photos and contains mostly text. Often the lack of photos is a major issue for me when it comes to cookbooks as I find it really helps to see what the meal your are attempting to reproduce actually looks like. The main reason that this isn't so much of an issue when it comes to The Flavours of Vietnam is because the book is basically a list of recipes for all the meals you find on most Melbourne Vietnamese restaurant menus. I find it very satisfying to be able to reproduce a meal that I have enjoyed in a restaurant days earlier and this book has been the key to many instances when I have achieved this. So what I'm saying is, you don't need the pictures, just go to a Vietnamese restaurant order your meal and hopefully enjoy it. Then go home and look it up in this book, head to Footscray, Richmond or Springvale to buy the ingredients and then just follow the recipe in this book. I guarantee you will come very close to reproducing the restaurant meal you enjoyed.

Some of the recipe books out there have wonderful photos and list copious amounts of ingredients for a particular meal but when you go to try and cook it, it doesn't look or taste anything like the same meal from your favourite Vietnamese restaurant. That's not to say it doesn't taste delicious, just somehow different. A good example of this is the Nuoc Mam from Luke Nguyen's Songs of Sapa. I own and love all of Luke's cookbooks and watch his shows regularly but there is no way his Nuoc Mam (which is excellent) tastes at all like the version you get in the local Melbourne Vietnamese restaurants. This is probably due to all the regional variations which is understandable but also very frustrating to the home cook trying to reproduce a particular experience. On that point, I  am starting to think that maybe Melbourne Vietnamese food is in itself a regional variation. We do have one of the largest populations of Vietnamese outside Vietnam so its not that crazy an idea. The Nuoc Mam from The Flavours of Vietnam is much closer to what I have found in many of the Melbourne Vietnamese restaurants so as I'm writing this I'm forming the view that this cookbook may not be an authenctic guide to Vietnamese food in general but it certainly is the best cookbook that I know of to showcase the regional variation of Vietnamese cuisine that is Melbourne.

Ok so as usual, I need to get to the point. I have a brand new and unstained version of this cookbook that I am giving away to a lucky reader. All you need to do is leave a comment telling me about your favourite Vietnamese meal and the name of the restaurant at which you enjoyed it. Simple! I also need you to enter your email address in the 'Follow by Email' box to the top right of the screen so I have some way to contact you if you win. Alternatively, you can 'Like' krapow on Facebook. And that's it! I am happy to cover the cost of posting the book interstate or overseas within reason (I reckon about $10 should get it most places). Even better, if you are able to meet me on a weekday in the Melbourne CBD I will deliver it to you in person. Entries close on Sunday 29 April.

Good Luck!