[phatch]

You might also have stumbled into the homeopathic aisle which can be fairly odd.

But for cooking, books by these authors are quite good.

Chinese:
Grace Young,
Eileen Yin Fei Lo
Yan Kit So
Kenneth Lo, mostly out of print now but used book sites on line have quite a selection at reasonable prices.
Bruce Cost wrote a guide to pan-Asian ingredients that too is out of print but readily available used.

Vietnamese
Mai pham ( I think was the author, I'll have to check my notes on another PC) Yes, but it's only one book, Pleasures of the Vietnamese Table.


Martin Yan has written many books on this region. The newer ones tend to be using the odder ingredients but he also simplifies a lot which is reasonable for many cooks with still good results.

These authors produce food rather unlike what we see in Chinese restaurants for example as that food tends to be fairly hybridized to US palates


I don't cook much Korean or Japanese. I have a few Thai cookbooks, but nothing I consider exceptional.