"What do I do with the sausage?" my partner asks. He's making a chorizo-and-chicken dish, and these two ingredients, now browned, sit on a plate beside the stove. "The book says 'Return the chicken to the pan,'" he continues, adding plaintively, "nothing about the sausage". When a recipe is confusing, doesn't look like the picture, or tastes less than stellar, don't necessarily blame yourself. Blame (in this case) the internationally famous chef who forgot to write down all the steps. The problem doubles when amateur cooks share their favourite dishes and becomes a profound challenge when a home cook is describing a dish in English when that isn't his or her first language.

Behind the most reliable cookbooks are recipe testers who check, refine, and interpret ingredients and instructions so that the rest have us can re-create a specific dish, be it Singapore Steamboat, Danish Meatballs, or Moira's Sri Lankan Cashew-Nut Curry. These are just some of the 100 dishes in Flavours of Vancouver: Dishes From Around the World (Douglas & McIntyre, $24.95; partial proceeds go to Save the Children Canada).

The recipe tester, one of the key people behind a cookbook's success, is usually given, at most, a tiny mention in the overall credits, but in Flavours of Vancouver, Joan Cross shares front-cover honours with co-compiler Sheila Peacock. Largely self-taught, Cross says she learned most of her culinary skills from the books of Julia Child, whose directions were so meticulous that they often run to several pages. Cross brought the same rigorous discipline to this particular project. Leafing through a fat three-ring binder of CBC listeners' recipes, she notes: "They put things down like 'handfuls', which is the kind of thing you do when you hand down recipes." "Large cans" (of unspecified size) and "Use as much flour as needed" were other instructions Cross had to contend with. "You need an explanation," she says. "Is the mixture soupy or soft or sticky or stiff? You need to know the consistency." Sometimes ingredients were listed and never mentioned again. "A lot of it," she says, "is because of different languages."

"The cookbook's purpose was to celebrate the diversity of Vancouver," says CBC producer Sheila Peacock, describing how she set the project in motion by putting the word out for entries on four Vancouver-produced radio shows. "The premise was a favourite family recipe and the story behind it, or a favourite recipe you've found on your travels and brought home to share. It had to have the personal stamp on it.…The other thing I did was let adult-ESL teachers know about it. They use food all the time as conversation. These are very new Canadians," she says of the 10 ESL students whose fare includes a chive- laden Whampao Scrambled Eggs that, contri?butor Tony Luk reveals, was enjoyed by Dr. Sun Yat-sen and Chiang Kai-shek to such an extent that it was given the name of the village.

With its few ingredients and simple technique, that was an easy one for Cross to test. A harder and more typical challenge was Uncle Bill's Oxtail Mock Turtle Soup as written down by Joyce Vandegriend's Uncle Bill, a camp cook and gold prospector. "His [version] is so colourful and so fun," says Cross. It contained instructions like 'Boil the oxtail until the meat falls off. Let the broth cool. The next morning haul it out…but you have to know how to cook.' I love the way he wrote 'Boil the beans as soft as you can.'?" He never mentioned the meat again."

She tested each recipe individually, making copious notes as she worked. "Countries cook with different measuring devices. We decided to go with imperial. Some recipes were a mixture. I always had the scales out. I weighed ingredients, then changed it into cups." Some she adapted for reasons of safety. "We have a ceviche in there. I made sure there was a note about handling raw fish." She tested results on husband Sid and, along with questions, took samples to meetings with Peacock. "Whenever we hit a snag, I spent a long time going back to the originator so it truly was their recipe," says Peacock who occasionally called in media personality Andy Lung to field queries in Cantonese or Mandarin. When quantities weren't specified, Cross fiddled until, for instance, a vinegar-soy-and-sesame sauce tasted right, and then ran it by her Chinese neighbour as she did with non-restaurant dishes like bing (a Beijing street food).

Even though she cooks extensively, certain ingredients floored Cross. Zereshk, she learned, was an Iranian dried fruit, and "green bean vermicelli are made with mung beans." Then there was the casareep used in Guyanese pepper pot, which research showed was made from cassava root, looked like molasses, and also featured in Caribbean cooking. "First I phoned places like Urban Fare and Whole Foods," says Cross. "Nobody knew. [Then] I went through the Yellow Pages and found a place in New Westminster [Caribbean Market, 1003 Royal Avenue]. The "plaster powder" that Peacock alludes to in the acknowledgments gave everyone pause for thought; it was eventually found to be calcium sulphate. (Space limitations meant the recipe never made it into the book.)

Professional chefs contributed dishes too, but not those they serve in their restaurants, says Peacock. Le Crocodile owner Michel Jacob, for instance, submitted his father's poulet farci. Some recipes arrived in perfect shape, but Cross's file folder reveals that even the words of seasoned pros benefited from small improvements. As originally submitted, Fricasée de Lapin, a recipe from the William Tell's Erwin Doebeli, listed "1 rabbit". Alongside, Cross pencilled: "3 lb. Cut into x pieces" and altered the instruction to simmer "until meat is cooked" to read "until meat is tender". (In the book's final cut, it reads "until meat can be easily pierced with a knife".) Once tested, the recipes went back to their originators along with their edited story. Sometimes, corrections came back, Peacock says. (No, cranberries were not a substitute for zereshk.)

The 100 recipes and stories that made it into the book are an enlightening and engaging cross-section of Vancouver-or rather where we've come from and how we eat. Barring the cup of Madeira in Uncle Bill's stew, they are easy and cheap, and represent, Peacock is proud to say, all ages and continents. "The number one way to say 'hi' to your neighbours is over food," she concludes. "It's the way you traditionally make new friends." -

Rachel Newton writes in the introduction to her recipe: "My family background is Burmese-Chinese (Burma is the present-day Myanmar. I was born in Australia.…This Burmese curry recipe has been passed from both of my grandmothers to my mother and then to my sister and me. I know there is a correct Burmese name for this dish, but we call it Yellow Chicken as the turmeric makes the chicken turn yellow. This was my comfort food when I was growing up…"

Serves four to six

2 tablespoons sunflower or vegetable oil

1 small yellow onion, diced

2 teaspoons minced garlic

1 teaspoon minced fresh ginger

2 teaspoons paprika

(sweet or hot depending on taste)

1 teaspoon turmeric

1 whole chicken, cut into eight pieces

1-2 tablespoons mushroom soy sauce, to taste

1 cup chicken stock, plus one extra cup chicken stock to use if necessary

1 cup canned tomatoes, with juice, diced

Heat oil over low-to-medium heat in a large pot. Add onion, garlic, and ginger, and sauté, stirring occasionally, until golden. Add paprika and turmeric, and mix into a paste. (Careful, it will stain clothes.) Add chicken pieces and raise the heat to brown chicken. Stir to cover all pieces with the paste. Add soy sauce and chicken stock, stir well, and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium, and add tomatoes with juice. Cover and simmer for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add more chicken stock if necessary. Remove cooked chicken pieces to a platter. The meat should pierce easily with a fork and the juices run clear yellow, not pink. Remove the lid, increase heat, and reduce the liquid to a sauce consistency. Stir occasionally. Put chicken pieces back into the finished sauce and heat through to serve. Serve with white jasmine or basmati rice and stir-fried vegetables.

From the book Flavours of Vancouver by Sheila Peacock and Joan Cross, published by Douglas & McIntyre. Reprinted by arrangement with the publisher. All rights reserved.