Fun cook book that includes the stories behind the recipes, where the food comes from, and insight into the author's life.

Named after the chef author’s New Orleans restaurant, this was a cookbook to delight Cajun food lovers. Its also a book for people who want to learn more about the bayou region and the history of the Cajuns. Add to that the beautiful photography and you have a book to enjoy even if you don’t cook any of the recipes.

Have you ever read a cookbook cover to cover? That was me with Mosquito Supper Club this weekend. Melissa Martin's book is a love letter not just to Cajun cuisine but to our ecosystem. Its culture, ecology, sustainability, and the people that have made a life in the bayou. It is also, very sadly, about how that way of life is disappearing and the need to preserve what we can. Full of beautiful photography, clearly explained instructions (including things like how to peel a crawfish and shuck an oyster for folks that aren't from around here), Mosquito Supper Club is more than just a cookbook but it is a darn good cookbook!

If you love Cajun food then this cookbook is for you. Shrimp from boiled to shrimp stew to shrimp bonlettes, which I love. There are so many stories including The Blessing of the Fleet. Crabs: steam them, crab cakes, stuffed crab and crab claws. The author’s family are oyster farmers. Oyster soup, fried oysters on toast and how to eat oysters on the half shell. Moving oyster beds. Crawfish: how to peel, hand pies and bisque. Tales of crawfish. Gumbo is either Cajun or Creole. Chicken dishes, fried catfish and salt pork and beans. This is a well written book with lots of wonderful recipes that I highly recommend.

Every hour, Louisiana loses a football field's worth of land to the Gold of Mexico. Soon, the people and culture of South Louisiana, where chef Melissa Martin was born and raised, will disappear. In Mosquito Supper Club (named after Martin's restaurant in New Orleans) Martin combines traditional Cajun recipes with explanations of ingredients and the traditions behind them.

This book was a delight from start to finish. A combination of gorgeous photographs, easy to understand recipes, and stories of the people and traditions behind the food, "Mosquito Supper Club" takes 'cookbook' to a whole new level. From how to properly clean a crab to shucking oysters, from dancing the shrimp to the story behind gumbo, readers will learn the truth behind the Cajun traditional way of life. Melissa Martin gives readers unfamiliar with the land, culture, and people of South Louisiana a perfect introduction to her home and the ways it has both changed and stayed the same over the generations. She encourages you- as a reader and a cook- to think about your ingredients and where they come from, to question the impact they have on the farmers, and fishermen. As a novice cook, I greatly appreciated how her recipes sounded like she was standing right there, talking to me about what to look for in a pot- from the color of the onion to the texture of a dough, these descriptions took the guess work out of what to look for and how to tell when something was ready. As a native of New Orleans, I greatly appreciated her discussions of the impact humans have had on the environment and how that has changed the resources and culture people experience today. Anyone who glances as just one photograph in this book will be drawn to discover more, and before you know it you'll be both reading and cooking while enjoying a whole new world.


I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

Not only does this cookbook give amazing cajun recipes, but gives a look into the history of cajun food! Can't wait to try some of these!

This is one of those cookbooks that demands to be read cover to cover because Martin is telling a real story about the land and her people through her food. I appreciated her straightforwardness to tell the truth about how climate change is changing the bayou and the people who call her home. The personal anecdotes she weaves through the narrative can't help but make a reader sympathetic to their plight. The recipes themselves are fairly simple and to the point and guaranteed to transport the cook right to the shores.

Mosquito Supper Club by Melissa M. Martin is so much more than a (superb) cookbook - it's a history of Louisiana and "cajun" folk, a beautiful photo essay, and Ms. Martin's autobiography. The author is trying to preserve not only the area's recipes but also the memories of a way of life that is quickly disappearing with the land. I have already fallen in love with Louisiana; I have also now fallen in love with this book. Thank you Netgalley for my review copy and I look forward to purchasing a hard copy for my personal library.

Chef Melissa M. Martin’s debut cookbook is comforting for those of us that were born in Louisiana, but find ourselves far removed from the food and culture we love so much. The recipes are traditionally Cajun and I found my mouth watering up on several occasions throughout the book. The stories she weaves throughout the book of the Cajun south are informative and entertaining, particularly to those unfamiliar with sugarcane and satsumas or how to pronounce "courtbouillon." She touches on Acadia and the history of Cajuns and Creoles, and her introduction is heartfelt as she covers both that she is proud of on the bayou and the environmental dangers seeping in. It is an absolutely necessary cookbook for any lover of Cajun cuisine and culture.

I am from Southern Arkansas and I love this cookbook!! Has lots of great cajun recipes that anyone might want to try at anytime of the year!! Thanks for publishing this one! I will be buying a copy!

Absolutely wonderful, this book has it all--great recipes, wonderful photos, and the context to make all of it meaningful. I enjoyed most the stories told by the writer that explain both her cultural background and her well written and easily replicated recipes. Nearly all ingredients are easily available, the methods are clearly explained and use ordinary equipment. The ingredients are, for the most part, easily obtained, and the appendix includes mail order sources. I couldn't come up with a single complaint. I do like to try a couple of recipes before reviewing and have to say that the lagniape rolls were an instant success with my grandsons. I also enjoyed some of the ancillary recipes such as the blackberry compote, having a good supply of blackberries in my freezer. The white bean recipe is nearly identical to my own bean soup with the single difference that I use bacon instead of salt pork--but can verify that the recipe is the best bean soup you will ever eat. The fried catfish was a little different than what I've usually done, but converted me instantly.

This book is wonderful. As a north Louisiana native who moved south a few years ago, the stories provide so much background for things in this part of the world. The recipes are wonderful. I never knew there were so many ways to make gumbo! The pictures, both of food and of the south Louisiana landscapes, are breathtaking. My only tiny caveat is that the fractions are somewhat hard to read - it was hard to tell 1/2 from 1/3, etc, but definitely worth the peering and squinting.

I have loved reading cookbooks since I was a child, my mother always had plenty around the house. The best cookbooks have not only recipes, but also a sense of place, a little history and personal story about where the recipes came from. Martin delivers that and more, in this beautifully photographed love story to the bayous of Louisiana. She doesn’t just give you recipes for using fresh, local shrimp, she also explains how they’re caught, what the life of a shrimper is like and the impact that imported seafood is having on local, American families. Beautiful, moving and delicious, if you like to eat, this book belongs on your shelf

This is another book that I can't assign a star rating to, as I'm so conflicted about how I'd possibly rate it. I had to stop reading it halfway through, as Martin was detailing how to cut up a live softshell crab with scissors, starting by first cutting off its face before moving on to the other parts. She writes about how hard this is, especially since "the bigger guys try to attach themselves to our hands" as she and her partner dismember them despite calling them "alive and defenseless in your hands" and saying that they apologize over and over to them as they do it. Earlier, she described the process of saying a prayer and then dropping in hardshell crabs alive into boiling water. I'm sorry, but I cannot read any more of it.

All that said, this is a book that desperately needed to be written and desperately needs to be read. Martin grew up in the bayou and has lived in this industry all her life, and she is a witness to losing a football field's worth of land in Louisiana every hour due to rising tides, disappearing wetlands and global warming. In addition, this way of life is disappearing because Americans would rather pay cheap prices for seafood caught on the other side of the world than support the people who barely scrape a living out of doing this as a second job all night long.

Chapters teach traditional recipes to make all kinds of bayou seafood from shrimp to oysters to sweets and breads. I may skip ahead to the vegetables later to see if there are any recipes I want to try, but for now I'm putting aside this book to look for something a little lighter and brighter.

I read a temporary digital ARC of this book for the purpose of review.