This is the fourth Paula Wolfert book I have reviewed and I find it better than the first three, even better than her important first book on Moroccan cuisine. It easily lands on my short list of best cookbooks dedicated to a specific regional cuisine. While Elizabeth David's book on Mediterranean cuisine maintains an important place in the literature of Mediterranean cuisine and Claudia Roden's book on the food of the Middle East improves the depth of coverage over David, Wolfert's book tops both of them in depth of coverage and may rival David's book for insights into the culinary wellsprings of the region.
Outside of writing on the Mediterranean and the Middle East, I find Wolfert's book to rival those of Diana Kennedy on Mexico and even match the quality, if not the seminal influence of Julia Child's 'Mastering the Art of French Cooking'. The main edge I would give to Child's book is that it succeeds in bringing a more limited topic into a bit clearer focus.
Wolfert does not cover the entire Eastern Mediterranean, and her book gains from the focus she put on the four areas she covers. These are:
Northern Greece (Macedonia and Thrace)
Turkey (Anatolia)
Georgia (bordering on the Black Sea, south of the Caucasus)
The Levant (Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Israel)
While Georgia does not border on the Mediterranean, Wolfert finds that the cuisine here is very similar to the other three regions she has chosen, which makes sense since Georgia borders on Turkey and probably shares much of the same agriculture as northern Greece.
Wolfert shares with Kennedy a love of her subject, which matches or surpasses that of even native writers. Paula gives us practically every aspect of her search of local, authentic recipes from stories about her local contacts through thoughts about how to adapt authentic recipes to American kitchens to reflections on those features which distinguish great cuisines, as she does when discussing pilafs, where she says "For me, any cuisine that makes plain starches so beguiling is a cuisine of great sophistication." The accuracy of this statement hits home immediately since I just got finished reviewing a book on Tuscan food which manages to make stale bread, dried beans, and corn mush into interesting food.
That this is a great book still requires some qualification to identify the audience for which it is best suited.
First, it is an essential volume in the library of cookbook collectors and food scholars. Like Kennedy and unlike David and Roden, Wolfert maintains the touch of the scholar in her writing in citing connections to local sources and native language documents. For the cookbook reader and collector, I also offer the opinion that Ms. Wolfert is an excellent writer, or, she has a really crackerjack crew of editors at Harper Collins to tighten up her prose.
Second, it is probably one of the very best cookbooks for natives of this region transplanted to the United States. There are books on the cuisine of Turkey and Greece, but I suspect books on the food of Georgia are pretty uncommon.
Third, it is a great book for non-natives who happen to have developed a taste for this food.
Fourth, this is a superior source of recipes for vegetarian dishes and for ways of substituting bulgar wheat for rice in various dishes. The book is also a great source of yogurt recipes, including directions on making it at home.
Fifth, the book takes special note of recipes, which are suitable as Meze dishes.
Sixth, the book gives more coverage to breakfast and lunch and to the food appropriate to Ramadan. When other authors gloss over this last subject, it is like they are ignoring the presence of the 800 pound gorilla in the room.
There may be people who will not get their money's worth out of this book. Like Wolfert's most recent book on slow cooking recipes, these recipes are all rather long and clearly benefit from long cooking times. If speed is your thing, go to Rachael Ray or a general cookbook author like Mark Bittman. Both have adapted dishes from Wolfert's canon.
For my money, this is easily one of the top ten (10) cookbooks available in English. It's geographic range is eclectic and it may not replace books specializing in Greek or Turkish or Lebanese cuisines, but it's approach to food writing is a great model for others.
