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
Moving east from Italy, travelers encounter Greece and its archipelago. The foods of the Greek islands, as described by Aglaia Kremezi, have suffered from the decreasing harvest of surrounding seas. Nevertheless, these islands carry forward a grand tradition that marries aspects of Western cooking with ingredients of Eastern provenance. In addition to the book's attractive recipes, readers profit from Kremezi's suggested variations for many of the dishes--for example, turning a large lemon custard in phyllo pastry into individual, handily served packets.East of Greece lies the home of one of the world's great culinary traditions, that of the Middle East. Claudia Roden has updated her classic work, first published in 1972, and presents The New Book of Middle Eastern Food. She has used this occasion to add variations to classic recipes and to update readers about newly available foods, such as the increasing variety of eggplants found in contemporary markets. Libraries will want this new edition for the wealth of reference information on Middle Eastern cooking the volume holds. Mort Rosenblum eschews recording recipes in favor of giving the reader a sense of the role of food in the lives of the French. Although the pressures of globalization have altered the way young French people in particular eat, the world's preeminent food culture still carries forward its national obsession. A Goose in Toulouse examines some of France's most significant contributions to the table in a series of essays covering Roquefort cheese, cassoulet, champagne, goat cheese, truffles, and that indispensable annual catalog of French restaurants, the Michelin Red Guide. Rosenblum profiles chefs from the aged Raymond Thuilier, who conceived Provence's Le Baumaniere, through contemporary artists on the order of the Savoie region's Marc Veyrat.In 1958, the National Council of Negro Women published a cookbook documenting their food heritage. Organized to serve as a means of observing annual holidays, it presented recipes from the earliest days of the nation, with contextual commentary. The cookbook marched boldly into territory beyond plantation life with exotica such as sukiyaki and Ceylon curry. A new reprint of The Historical Cookbook of the American Negro offers insight into both the cooking of the first generations of African Americans and the self-perception of their female descendants at the outset of the sixties' civil rights movement.Julia Child's career has now come full circle. Her newest book assumes the reader's mastery of the kitchen skills outlined in her previous tomes. Julia's Kitchen Wisdom offers few traditional recipes; instead, the grande dame of chefs shows how a real cook operates, cooking from ideas and from techniques polished during years of working over a stove, not from a formal recipe. This short book will appeal to anyone whose imagination is as central to cooking as technical skill. Mark Knoblauch
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Review
Aglaia Kremezi's new cookbook brings the flavors of the Mediterranean to tables everywhere. --Sheryl Julian and Julie Riven -- Review
About the Author
A journalist and photographer, AGLAIA KREMEZI lives on the Greek island of Kea, where she teaches cooking to travelers. She is a contributing writer for Saveur, Bon Appétit, Food & Wine, and others. She is the author of Vegetarian Mediterranean Feasts. Her best-selling The Foods of Greece won the Julia Child Award.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Foreword
The foods you will find in this book are the ones I like to cook
every day or on special occasions, traditional and contemporary
dishes that I love to eat. I collected many of them on summer
vacations and special trips, others were given to me by great island
cooks, and quite a few were handed down to me from my family,
originally from the islands of the Cyclades.
I learned to cook from my mother, my grandmother and my aunt. Even
before going to school, I remember shelling peas in the large kitchen
of my grandfather"s old house, which had a wood-burning cooking stove
with a large hood over it. I was too short to reach the sink and had
to stand on a stool in order to rinse and trim the wild greens or
wash the dishes. I would help my aunt roll bitter orange peels and
thread them like a necklace when she made her rolled bitter-orange
preserves. My mother taught me how to prepare the artichokes that
overran our garden. My younger sister and I always helped shape the
Christmas honey cookies. We learned how to remove the stones from
cherries using a hairpin-there were no special instruments for that
then-and we looked on as my mother scaled and gutted all the many
kinds of fish my father brought from the port of Piraeus, where he
worked.
Watching my grandfather slaughter a hen with a small ax was
traumatic, and we would cover our eyes as the hen flapped, headless,
around the yard. But the dark-fleshed, chewy meat we cooked in stews
or soups was so much more flavorful than that of the pallid, sickly
looking chicken we eat today.
Both my mother"s and father"s families trace their roots to the
islands: My father comes from Andros, my mother from Kea. I grew up
on the outskirts of Athens, beside a large garden next to my mother"s
family"s house. Nikitas Patiniotis, my grandfather from Kea, was a
handsome and remarkable man. Calm, loving and compassionate, he often
went as far as to buy the worst, almost rotten vegetables from the
greengrocer who passed each day with his mule. This made my
grandmother furious.
"He is a poor man, Anna, and if we don"t buy them, who will?" I
remember him saying to her apologetically. My grandfather taught me
all about the different wild greens -how and when to collect them. He
spoke to me about all the plants of the garden, relating the story of
the fragrant bay, once a beautiful woman. He identified the various
insects for me, explaining how they lived and what they ate,
insisting that there are no bad and good creatures but that each
fulfills a purpose.
When I was fourteen, we left our house in the country and went to
live in a flat in the center of Athens. Ever since, I have longed to
return to the country. Now that we have purchased a house on the
island of Kea, I feel I have come full circle.
Traveling from island to island, reading old books and kitchen
ledgers, researching history and customs and building friendships
with island cooks have made me proud of my origins. This book is not
an encyclopedia of Greek island cooking but a very personal selection
from thousands of recipes that I have collected over the years.
Besides relying on personal preference, I have chosen dishes that can
be successfully cooked away from the islands and outside Greece. Some
islands are better represented than others, and I have undoubtedly
missed some foods worth recording. Each village on each island has
many different versions of the same dish, often using diverse
ingredients; and Greece has about 170 inhabited islands in all.
It would be impossible to claim that I know all there is to know
about the island foods. My search continues.
-Aglaia Kremezi
Kotopoulo Youvetsi
Baked Chicken with Orzo
Makes 6 servings
1/3 cup olive oil
1 41/2-pound free-range chicken or capon, cut into 6 pieces, or 6
turkey drumsticks
1 large onion, halved and thinly sliced
1/3 cup chopped oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes
1 cinnamon stick
1 teaspoon dried oregano, crumbled
1 teaspoon Aleppo pepper or pinch crushed red pepper flakes
2 cups grated ripe tomatoes (see page 27) or canned diced tomatoes
with their juice
Salt
2 cups Chicken Stock (page 267), plus more if needed
1 pound orzo or elbow macaroni, cooked in plenty of boiling salted
water for 2 minutes and drained
2 tablespoons chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
1/2 cup coarsely grated hard myzithra, kefalotyri, pecorino Romano or
Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese
Preheat the oven to 400°F.
In a Dutch oven, heat the oil over medium-high heat and sauté the
chicken or turkey in batches until golden brown on all sides. Set
aside.
Add the onion to the pot and sauté until soft, about 3 minutes. Add
the sun-dried tomatoes, cinnamon stick, oregano, pepper or pepper
flakes and tomatoes. Sprinkle the chicken or turkey with salt and
return to the Dutch oven. Add about 1/2 cup stock, or enough to come
about two-thirds of the way up the chicken or turkey. Bring to a
boil, cover and transfer to the oven.
Bake for about 11/2 hours, or until the meat is very tender. Transfer
the chicken or turkey to a platter and cover with aluminum foil to
keep warm.
Meanwhile, bring the remaining 11/2 cups stock to a simmer.
Add the stock to the cooking liquid, stir in the pasta and bake,
uncovered, for about 15 minutes, or until most of the liquid has been
absorbed, adding more stock if the pasta begins to dry out.
Place the chicken or turkey on top of the pasta and bake for another
10 minutes, until the pasta is tender. Serve immediately, sprinkled
with the parsley and cheese.
This Chicken Dish is a common Sunday one-pot meal of the islands. In
her wonderful taverna in Avgonima, Chios, Kalliopi Delios cooks
homemade macaroni in the chicken-tomato stock. Orzo, elbow macaroni,
ziti and penne rigate are good alternatives. This recipe is based on
Kalliopi"s.
Text and interior photographs copyright © 2000 by Aglaia Kremezi
