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Winner, James Beard Foundation Best Cookbook of the Year Award, 2015James Beard Foundation Best International Cookbook Award, 2015The Art of Eating Prize for Best Food Book of the Year, 2015The Yucatn Peninsula is home to one of the world's great regional cuisines. With a foundation of native Maya dishes made from fresh local ingredients, it shares much of the same pantry of ingredients and many culinary practices with the rest of Mexico. Yet, due to its isolated peninsular location, it was also in a unique position to absorb the foods and flavors of such far-flung regions as Spain and Portugal, France, Holland, Lebanon and the Levant, Cuba and the Caribbean, and Africa. In recent years, gourmet magazines and celebrity chefs have popularized certain Yucatecan dishes and ingredients, such as Sopa de lima and achiote, and global gastronomes have made the pilgrimage to Yucatn to tantalize their taste buds with smoky pit barbecues, citrus-based pickles, and fiery chiles.