The Cooking of the Eastern Mediterranean: 300 Healthy, Vibrant, and Inspired Recipes FROM OUR EDITORS
Almost anthropological in its outlook, Paula Wolfert's trek into the cooking of the eastern Mediterranean is already a culinary classic. Although not a vegetarian cookbook, it offers such a broad range of nonmeat dishes that are zesty and healthful, with plenty of recipes for grain, legume, and vegetable main courses, that it belongs on a vegetarian cook's shelf.
FROM THE PUBLISHER
The Cooking of the Eastern Mediterranean refers both Paula Wolfert's love of great food and the pioneering spirit that has inspired her to travel across the globe many times over in search of the world's best recipes. In all of her remarkable books, she delves with tireless enthusiasm into her research and writing, ensuring each recipe's authenticity and accessibility. In The Cooking of the Eastern Mediterranean, she brings readers and cooks into the kitchens that produce the healthy home cooking that is the trademark of such lands as Macedonian, Turkey, Syria, and the countries on the Black Sea.
Wolfert's food dazzles the palate. Her book begins with recipes for sauces and dips, including two walnut and pomegranate sauces; soups include Anatolian Sour Soup and Macedonian "Green Cream." Meat, poultry, and fish dishes include eleven varities of kibbeh, Duck with Quinces, and Skewered Swordfish. Her sumptuous recipes for vegetables and grains—stuffed eggplants, pilafs, and pomegranate-flavored vegetables, to name a few—reflect the bounty and healthful eating patterns of the Eastern Mediterranean.
Wolfert's Middle Eastern grain salads are healthy and rich with flavor. Paula travels into the kitchens of native cooks to ensure that her recipes are as genuine as they are delicious. She takes us into the home of a friend in the Republic of Georgia, whose mother teaches Wolfert how to prepare Chicken Tabaka; to a mountain village in northern Greece where, with a sister food writer, she searches for fine cheese to complete a savory pie; and to a farm in Turkey, where the country's best bread baker tells her secrets of bakingunleavened flat griddle bread.
These delicious, authentic recipes focus on the healthy eating patterns for which the Eastern Mediterranean is increasingly being recognized. Wolfert's recipes are as delightful to read as they are to use. Armchair cooks and travelers will be moved by the descriptive geography and resonate personal stories Paula Wolfert relates along with her fabulous dishes. Wolfert's expertise is renowned among food lovers, amateur and professional, and her joy of discovering new ways to prepare food is infectious to her many devoted readers.
Author Biography: Paula Wolfert, a resident of San Francisco, is the author of five previously published cookbooks, among them Couscous and Other Good Food from Morocco, The Cooking of South-West France, The Cooking of the Eastern Mediterranean, and Paula Wolfert's World of Food. She is a contributor to numerous publications, including Gourmet, Food & Wine, Eating Well, Saveur, and the New York Times. She has won the Julia Child Award, the James Beard Award, the M. E K. Fisher Award, the Tastemaker Award, and was a finalist for Britain's prestigious Andr&eacte; Simon Award.
FROM THE CRITICS
Craig Claiborne
I think she's one of the finest and most influential food writers in this country. Her recipes are done with incredible accuracy. She brings a sense of wonder to matters of taste. She also has an uncommonly fine palate. In sum, Paula is one of the leading lights in contemporary gastronomy.
Trish Hall
Ms. Wolfert does not just writer recipes; she writes about the recipes, and about the food, and about the people who make the food. —New York Times
Anthony Dias Blue
A cookbook by Paula Wolfert is cause for celebration. Ms. Wolfert may be America's most knowledgeable food person and her books are full of insight, passion and brilliance.
Publishers Weekly
Food fads may come and go, but meanwhile Wolfert ( Couscous and Other Good Food From Morocco ) runs off to some little-documented area of the world and puts it on the (American) culinary map. One of the first food writers to recognize the importance of Mediterranean cuisines, she turns now to the Eastern Mediterranean. Encompassing portions of the Balkans, Turkey, Syria and Greece, the diet of the region depends on grains, legumes, vegetables and nuts, while avoiding meat or using it in small portions. True, this style of cooking is ideal for Americans obsessed with the Food Pyramid dietary guidelines, but Wolfert does not belabor the point. Not only does she offer wholesome recipes easily adaptable to American homes, but she also includes some of the more unusual preparations. A Macedonian nettle and cheese pie is so delicious, she claims, that Wolfert began growing the prickly greens herself. The traditional meaty kibbeh, usually a lump of ground lamb, she reinterprets as a pumpkin kibbeh, stuffed with spinach, chick peas and walnuts. Voices from native cooks, visited over a span of five years, add color, humor and realism to the melting pots of Macedonia, Turkey, the Levant and the Republic of Georgia. Wolfert is careful to add acknowledgements and extra tidbits of advice to help preparations go smoothly. Moreover, the general tone of the book is cheerful and encouraging. No matter how stinging the nettles, one is tempted to grab them firmly, rub them with kosher salt to remove the stings and blanch them for a pie. (June)
Library Journal
Wolfert is widely recognized as an authority on Mediterranean cuisines; her Couscous and Other Good Food from Morocco (1973) is a classic, and her more recent Paula Wolfert's World of Food (LJ 10/15/88) offers a cook's tour of the region. Here, however, she focuses on four lesser-known areas: Macedonia and northern Greece, Turkey, the Republic of Georgia, and the countries of the Levant, particularly Syria. Wolfert spent five years traveling throughout these diverse regions to write this book, visiting dozens of home cooks in their kitchens and tracking down obscure recipes and culinary traditions. As always, the book is impressively researched and beautifully written. The recipes are intriguing and painstakingly detailed, among them Macedonian Nettle and Cheese Pie, Three Caucasian Soups, and Gaziantep-Style Chopped Salad. Several recent titles have touched upon some of these areas, but Wolfert's is unique. An essential purchase. [BOMC HomeStyle main selection.]
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