The Olive and the Caper: Adventures in Greek Cooking
by Susanna Hoffman
from Workman Publishing Company
This is the year "It's Greek to me" becomes the happy answer to what's for dinner. My Big Fat Greek Wedding, the upcoming epic Troy, the 2004 Summer Olympics returning to Athens--and now, yet another reason to embrace all things Greek: The Olive and the Caper, Susanna Hoffman's 700-plus-page serendipity of recipes and adventure.
In Corfu, Ms. Hoffman and a taverna owner cook shrimp fresh from the trap--and for us she offers the boldly-flavored Shrimp with Fennel, Green Olives, Red Onion, and White Wine. She gathers wild greens and herbs with neighbors, inspiring Big Beans with Thyme and Parsley, and Field Greens and Ouzo Pie. She learns the secret to chewy country bread from the baker on Santorini and translates it for American kitchens. Including 325 recipes developed in collaboration with Victoria Wise (her co-author on The Well-Filled Tortilla Cookbook, with over 258,000 copies in print), The Olive and the Caper celebrates all things Greek: Chicken Neo-Avgolemeno. Fall-off-the-bone Lamb Shanks seasoned with garlic, thyme, cinnamon and coriander. Siren-like sweets, from world-renowned Baklava to uniquely Greek preserves: Rose Petal, Cherry and Grappa, Apricot and Metaxa.
In addition, it opens with a sixteen-page full-color section and has dozens of lively essays throughout the book--about the origins of Greek food, about village life, history, language, customs--making this a lively adventure in reading as well as cooking.
The Foods of the Greek Islands: Cooking and Culture at the Crossroads of the Mediterranean
by Aglaia Kremezi
from Houghton Mifflin
The food of the Greek Islands, which stretch from the Turkish shore to the eastern Ionian Sea, is simple but packed with flavor. Aglaia Kremezi has gathered over 150 recipes from these ancient, sunny lands and presented them with fascinating historical and cultural notes in The Foods of the Greek Islands, a landmark collection. The dishes she offers, such as Spaghetti with Lobster Sauce, Meatballs with Rice and Herbs in Lemon Broth, and Baked Mixed Vegetables, are as easy to prepare as they are wonderful to eat. Readers long hoping to find authentic recipes for the best Greek cooking, and those who enjoy fine Mediterranean food, should hail the book.
Beginning with island-by-island food profiles, the book then offers sections on meze, the famed small-dish appetizers; pitas and pies; entrees; seasonal salads; bread; and desserts. Welcome attention is also given to beans, rice, bulgur, and pastas, and dishes such as White Bean Soup with Wild Celery and Lemon, Bulgur with Chicken Liver and Currants, and Penne with Olive Oil and Toasted Cheese should become everyday and special-occasion household favorites. Bread and dessert recipes are equally satisfying: Kremezi's Olive and Mint Bread and Saffron, Allspice, and Pepper Biscuits, among others, will please bakers amateur and pro, while the sweets, based on honey, fruits, nuts, and cheese, are similarly tempting. Illustrated with color photos, and with a comprehensive ingredient glossary, the book is a window on cooking few of us could enjoy until its much appreciated arrival. --Arthur Boehm
Stretching from the shores of Turkey to the Ionian Sea east of Italy, the Greek islands have been the crossroads of the Mediterranean since the time of Homer. Over the centuries, Phoenicians, Athenians, Macedonians, Romans, Byzantines, Venetians, Ottoman Turks, and Italians have ruled the islands, putting their distinctive stamp on the food.
Aglaia Kremezi, a frequent contributor to GOURMET and an international authority on Greek food, spent the past eight years collecting the fresh, uncomplicated recipes of the local women, as well as of fishermen, bakers, and farmers. Like all Mediterranean food, these dishes are light and healthful, simple but never plain, and make extensive use of seasonal produce, fresh herbs, and fish. Passed from generation to generation by word of mouth, most have never before been written down. All translate easily to the American home kitchen: Tomato Patties from Santorini; Spaghetti with Lobster from Kithira; Braised Lamb with Artichokes from Chios; Greens and Potato Stew from Crete; Spinach, Leek, and Fennel Pie from Skopelos; Rolled Baklava from Kos.
Illustrated throughout with color photographs of the islanders preparing their specialties and filled with stories of island history and customs, THE FOODS OF THE GREEK ISLANDS is for all cooks and travelers who want to experience this diverse and deeply rooted cuisine firsthand.
The Real Greek at Home: Dishes from the Heart of the Greek Kitchen
by Theodore Kyriakou
from MITCH
For Kyriakou, an Athenian, these dishes are about more than food for the stomach; they’re also about food for the soul, and they evoke the experience of growing up in his beautiful and rugged native country. Anecdotes, myths, and vivid descriptions provide context for these recipes, and the ingredients, meals, and scenery are beautifully illustrated by Jason Lowe’s stunning color photographs.
The Greek Vegetarian: More Than 100 Recipes Inspired by the Traditional Dishes and Flavors of Greece
by Diane Kochilas
from St. Martin's Griffin
In Ithaca, the villagers so revere the olive that they give names to the olive trees that bear them. We're not talking upstate New York here, but Greece, the land that gave us rosy-fingered dawns and spanakopita. Diane Kochilas gives us the Greek way with vegetables in The Greek Vegetarian, and she should be given some kind of humanitarian award for the effort. For anyone fussing over increasing greens, vegetables, and grains while reducing the place of meat in the usual American diet, The Greek Vegetarian is a place of comfort and repose, a place to settle back in the sun and flip through the pages and let the deliciousness of all these wonderful food ideas lap over your life like warm waves from the Aegean Sea.
There are 100 recipes herein, and they come from the traditions of Greek cuisine. No one is stretching just to make a dish vegetarian (oh, OK: there's one recipe for vegetarian souvlaki). Only recently have Greeks gained the dubious title of biggest meat eaters in Europe, and even then all they did, according to the author, was make their plates bigger for the added meat. They still eat a diet rich in vegetables. Always have; always will.
But some specifics. Kochilas divides her book into Meze, the little dishes of Greece, and Main Meals, the pastas, soups, stews, casseroles, savory pies and breads, the egg dishes. There's Beet and Apple Salad with a Yogurt Dressing, for starters. How about Roasted Eggplant and Chickpea Salad? Or Arugula Salad with Wrinkled Olives and Orange Slices? The Classic Greek Bean Soup is included. So too is a dish of Potatoes Stewed with Kalamata Olives. The possibilities build, one upon the other. This book bursts with flavor the same way a vine-ripened, sun-warmed tomato bursts at the first bite. It will dribble down your chin if you're not careful. --Schuyler Ingle
Nosthimia!: The Greek American Family Cookbook (New American Family Cookbooks)
by Georgia Sarianides
from Capital Books
Written by Greek-American chef Georgia Sarianides, Nosthimia! The Greek American Family Cookbook introduces Americans to Greek cuisine in a fun and engaging way. Although Georgia was born in Greece, she is equally as enthusiastic about her adopted country, America. Through the years, Georgia has adapted her Greek cooking to the American lifestyle. As a mother of four and with a full time career, Georgia plans meals that are healthy and don’t require hours in the kitchen. She emphasizes the use of fresh fruits, vegetables, herbs, spices, and olive oil, all healthy and delicious. Sprinkled among the mouth-watering recipes, Georgia includes family stories, cooking tips, and customs from the Old Country. This unique combination of delicious Greek recipes with American ingredients features about 175 recipes that are nutritious and easy to prepare. As Georgia says, "My recipes are Greek with an American twist, just like me!"
The Complete Book of Greek Cooking
by St. Paul's Greek Orthodox Church
from William Morrow Cookbooks
More than 200 unique and intriguing recipes for all kinds of Greek dishes.
The Parthenon Cookbook: Great Mediterranean Recipes from the Heart of Chicago's Greektown
by Camille Stagg
from Agate Surrey
The Glorious Foods of Greece: Traditional Recipes from the Islands, Cities, and Villages
by Diane Kochilas
from William Morrow Cookbooks
Moussaka, grilled fish, and feta salad with olives--that's it for Greek food, right? Wrong, as abundantly proved by Diane Kochilas's masterful The Glorious Foods of Greece. For over 10 years, Kochilas investigated the vast wealth of Greek cooking, traveling to its islands, cities, mountains, and villages and talking to cooks, bakers, fisherman, farmers, and cheese makers. She listened astutely, and the result is not only hundreds of authentic recipes, but a definitive culinary guide.
Following an introduction in which Kochilas details, among other fascinating information, the nature of each region's cuisine (Rooumali and Epirus are shepherds' domains, she writes, "where the reigning food is pita, as in savory pie, hundreds of them...."), she then offers chapter-by-chapter observations with straightforward recipes. These range from mezze (appetizers) and soups to breads, main dishes, sweets, and drinks. From the olive country of Peloponnesus, for example, readers are offered the likes of Roast Leg of Lamb with Wine, Garlic, Allspice, and Cheese. The Italian-influenced Ionian islands provide Chicken Stewed in Fragrant Tomato Sauce with Thick Pasta, among other dishes. Snd from Macedonia and Thrace come such fare as Roasted Potato Salad with Hot Pepper and Mint, and Leek and Yogurt Pie.
Throughout, Kochilas also provides interesting sidebars (The Sardines of Lesvos, for example, profiles this local treasure known for its sweetness), ingredient sketches, and preparation suggestions. A section that explores cooking techniques and a useful source list concludes the book, which is a tribute to a widely undiscovered cuisine and the author's steady yet exuberant powers of investigation. --Arthur Boehm
The Glorious Foods of Greece is the magnum opus of Greek cuisine, the first book that takes the reader on a long and fascinating journey beyond the familiar Greece of blue-and-white postcard images and ubiquitous grilled fish and moussaka into the country's many different regions, where local customs and foodways have remaained intact for eons.
The journey is both personal and inviting. Diane Kochilas spent nearly a decade crisscrossing Greece's Pristine mountains, mainland, and islands, visiting cooks, bakers, farmers, shepherds, fishermen, artisan producers of cheeses, charcuterie, olives, olive oil, and more, in order to document the country's formidable culinary traditions. The result is a paean to the hitherto uncharted glories of local Greek cooking and regional lore that takes you from mountain villages to urban tables to seaside tavernas and island gardens.
In beautiful prose and with more than four hundred unusual recipes -- many of them never before recorded -- invites us to a Greece few visitors ever get to see. Along the way she serves up feast after feast of food, history, and culture from a land where the three have been intertwined since time immemorial.
In an informed introduction, she sets the historic framework of the cuisine, so that we clearly see the differences among the earthy mountain cookery, the sparse, ingenious island table, and the sophisticated aromaticcooking traditions of the Greeks in diaspora. In each chapter she takes stock of the local pantry and cooking customs. From the olive-laden Peloponnesos, she brings us such unusual dishes as One-Pot Chicken Simmered with Artichokes and served with Tomato-Egg-Lemon Sauce and Vine Leaves Stuffed with Salt Cod. From the Venetian-influenced Ionian islands, she offers up such delights asPastry-Cloaked Pasta from Corfu filled with cheese and charcuterie and delicious Bread Pudding from Ithaca with zabaglione. Her mainland recipes, as well as those that hail from Greece's impenetrable northwestern mountains, offer an enticing array of dozens of delicious savory pies, unusual greens dishes, and succulent meat preparations such as Lamb with Garlic and Cheese Baked in Paper. In Macedonia she documents the complex, perfumed, urbane cuisine that defines that region. In the Aegean islands, she serves up a wonderful repertory of exotic yet simple foods, reminding us how accessible -- and healthful -- is the Greek fegional table.
The result is a cookbook unlike any other that has ever been written on Greek cuisine, one that brims with the author's love and knowledge of her subject, a tribute to the vibrant, multifaceted continuum of Greek cooking, both highly informed and ever inviting. The Glorious Foods of Greece is an important work, one that contributes generously to the culinary literature and is sure to become the definitive book of Greek cuisine and culture for future generations of food lovers -- Greek and non-Greek alike.
The Food and Wine of Greece: More Than 300 Classic and Modern Dishes from the Mainland and Islands
by Diane Kochilas
from St. Martin's Griffin
This tantalizing collection of recipes covers all aspects of Greek cuisine and pays tribute to the history and tradition behind each dish. Each chapter--from olives and bread to appetizers, stews, savory pies, fish, poultry, meat, eggs, grains, vegetables, and sweets--is filled with detail on the ancient, religious and folkloric origins or various dishes. Basic preparations, such as those for phyllo, avgolemono, and grilling of fish and game, are covered, as are regional variations and local specialties, secrets of village home cookes, and guidelines on how to serve the foods in typical Greek fashion. Also included is a helpful guide on where and how to obtain Greek specialty items by mail.
The Scent of Orange Blossoms: Sephardic Cuisine from Morocco
by Kitty Morse
from Ten Speed Press
During Spain's infamous Inquisition, Jews were forced to flee the country for more welcoming shores. Many of these refugees landed in northern Africa, specifically Morocco, and a unique cuisine was born of the marriage of Spanish, Moorish, and traditional Jewish culinary influences. SCENT OF THE ORANGE BLOSSOMS celebrates this cuisine, presenting the elegant and captivating flavors passed down through generations of Jews in Morocco. The mouthwatering recipes include Fresh Fava Bean Soup with Cilantro for Passover, Chicken Couscous with Orange Blossom Water for Yom Kippur, and Honey Doughnuts for Hannukah. Illuminating the important connection among food, family, and tradition, the recipes are interspersed with letters between mothers and newly married daughters, discussing special events and menu planning.
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