Around the world with 1,001 foods

Is it a cookbook? A dictionary? A glossary? I've been living with "1001 Foods to Die For" for a week and I still don't know. But someone - we have no idea who, since this book has no editor listed anywhere - had the idea of assembling a compendium of the world's favorite dishes, ones travelers seek out. Often these are the same dishes, like pad Thai and lamb vindaloo, that immigrants bring with them in memory, re-creating and popularizing them in their new homes.

Each food gets its own descriptive, if not necessarily definitive, entry, complete with nuggets of history and tales of origin. Some have photographs, some have recipes. Since these are powerfully motivating foods, if not "to die for," then certainly "to hunt for," the effect is a little unnerving. Half the time you're left with an appetite that's all revved up with nowhere to go.

The recipes themselves vary tremendously. TV personalities and chefs Ina Garten, Mario Batali, and Jamie Oliver offer some, others are unattributed. No one's tried to render the style uniform; while Nigella Lawson discourses lengthily on her dislike of sifting in her recipe, some recipes don't even disclose how hot the flame should be. Fortunately, whether through luck or attentive testing, most of them work.

Soupa avgolemono, the classic Greek lemon and egg soup, had just five ingredients. It turned out smooth, plain, and restorative, though not as ricey as the photograph suggests. Saffron dissolved in milk over a double boiler gave its sunny yellow color to Middle Eastern saffron rice; cinnamon, cloves, and cardamom delicately suffused the mixture.

Fish cakes with creamed spinach illustrated British ingenuity in stretching a piece of fish with potatoes in times of need. They were simultaneously flaky and dense, although it was no easy task to hold the patties together long enough to form an attractive crust in the pan. Mediterranean ful medames, with its chaotic mash of fava beans, tomatoes, and onions, was no beauty. But a healthy dose of cumin bolstered its sweet and earthy taste.

Aussie chef Jill Dupleix's Jump-in-the-Pan chicken was a piquant, lemoned and capered reference to saltimbocca. The pounded, hand-shredded, and floured chicken breast consumed prep time, though the satiny, wine-finished exterior made it all worthwhile in the end. We liked Crash Hot Potatoes, too: small potatoes blanched, smashed, and blasted in the oven for a crisp golden crust.

Cornish pasty, another unattributed recipe, was easy to assemble, for a meat pie (see E4 for a local spot to buy one). The chilled lard and butter crust baked beautifully, though there wasn't enough dough to go round unless you altered your rolling technique. But the filling of starchy potatoes and turnips with a bit of steak was as monotonous as a long day in the mines where it was originally eaten, and there was twice as much as needed.

Desserts range from humble pies to laborious pavlovas and croquembouche. A straight-up chocolate mousse, thickened with both cream and egg yolks, achieved the classic velvet texture with a minimum of fuss. Chocolate fudge cake (a Lawson recipe), came out pleasingly moist and dense. The chocolate frosting - an easier buttercream, made with confectioner's sugar - was an ideal consistency for filling, spreading, and devouring.

Though 1001 is a pretty big number, it could never be big enough. I hunted in vain for some of my favorites: falafel, pappadum, sopaipillas, dan dan noodles. It seemed like dozens of marvelous Asian and Southeast Asian dishes were described, but scarcely any had a recipe. Still, anybody can quarrel with a list. And maybe we should. It's a reminder that we live in a world full of possibilities.

Whom do we have to thank for "1001 Foods"? Boston-based food writer Corby Kummer wrote the introduction. In the back of the book, past the breads, cakes, pastries, and drinks, we find a list of contributors. Someone must have taken the hundreds of photographs, and then assembled everything. "1001 Foods to Die For" is essentially an anonymous labor of love. Wherever the book may come from, now that it's here the only sensible thing to do is to sit down and tuck in.

1001 Foods to Die For
Andrews McMeel,960 pp., $39.95