Mediterranean Street Food: Stories, Soups, Snacks, Sandwiches, Barbecues, Sweets, and More, from Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East FROM OUR EDITORS
The Barnes & Noble Review
As a child in Beirut, Anissa Helou unsuccessfully begged her mother for permission to sample the delicious-smelling food from the street vendors. As an adult, she finally got her wish by tasting street food from all over the Mediterranean. From the tagines of Morocco to the sesame galettes of Greece and the kebabs of Turkey, Helou explores an exotic culinary world that is centuries old and provides all the essentials to bring the magic into your kitchen.
Contemporary Mediterranean street food still follows the traditions and divisions of the ancient world, says Helou: western (Spain, France, and Italy); eastern, or Levantine (Balkans, Greece, Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, and Israel); and southern (Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco). The western region relies less on street foods but still honors the tradition of food delivered quickly, whether at caf&eactue;s, tapas bars, or panini bars. Turn to the eastern and southern regions, however, and you will find a vibrant street food scene, with Turkey and Morocco in the forefront.
The chapters in Mediterranean Street Food are divided by type of food or main ingredient: soups; snacks, salads, dips; pizza and breads; barbecues; one-pot meals, sweets; and drinks. In addition to the standard street fare (grilled meats and hummous dip), Helou introduces us to the exotic: fried bread from North Africa, chickpea snacks from Genoa, and clotted cream fritters from Lebanon. All recipes have been adapted for American kitchens. For armchair or would-be travelers, there are wonderful photos and stories, as well as some tips on hygiene (bring your own cutlery!).
(Ginger Curwen)
FROM THE PUBLISHER
Who can resist a chickpea fritter in Nice, a kebab in Athens, an aniseed cookie in Tuscany, hummus in Tel Aviv, stuffed zucchini in Genoa, or a potato omelet in Spain? Cold or hot, sweet or savory, street food is everyone's temptation.
Anissa Helou loves street food. When she travels, she stops at every tea cart, sandwich stand, and candy stall to trade stories with local vendors and learn the recipes that tempt the crowds. Join her on a fascinating adventure around the Mediterranean, where eating on the street is a way of life. Learn the secret ingredients to the perfect Stuffed Mussels sold on the streets of Istanbul. Come along to a Berber woman's Moroccan Bread stall in Marrakech.Buy a sweet, sticky Semolina Cake from a cart in Cairo. From simple salads to fragrant barbecues to irresistible dips and drinks, each dish can be enjoyed on its own, or two or three may be combined to make a meal. With lively black-and-white photographs from Anissa's travels and more than eighty-five fast, flexible, flavorful recipes, Mediterranean Street Food offers home cooks the chance to experience the tastes of distant lands without leaving the kitchen.
FROM THE CRITICS
Publishers Weekly
This quirky cookbook features both tasty snacks and more substantial meals, all of them available on the streets of Italy, Turkey and other Mediterranean countries. Helou (CafE Morocco) is a friendly, inquisitive guide who's not afraid to express her own occasional squeamishness about eating on the street, especially in places like Cairo, where diners are expected to use the same spoons, cleaned only with a dunk in questionable water. A fascinating introduction shows a keen understanding of the entire region (Helou herself grew up in Beirut and fondly remembers the Corniche, an area filled with vendors of snacks, sweets and drinks). Recipes are organized by type of food (e.g., soups and sandwiches), and Helou provides a simple formula for arranging them into a traditional meal. Snacks include Farinata, a chickpea flour pancake from Genoa, and Stuffed Mussels from Istanbul, which are filled with rice and then steamed. A chapter on breads and pastries offers Lebanese Thyme Bread and Ramadan Bread with Dates. A few dishes, such as Greek Octopus and Onion Stew, sound like unlikely, albeit delicious, candidates for the eat-and-walk formula. A few more most notably a french fry sandwich from Beirut are just too strange to catch on. But on balance, this covers just the kind of food for which it is often near-impossible to locate a recipe. Desserts (Walnut Pancakes) and drinks (fermented Bulgur Drink) round out this solid collection of both curiosities and serious dining. (July) Forecast: This traveler's notebook of tasty snacks is interesting on both the sociological and culinary levels, and these days, anything with the word Mediterranean in the title sells this will be no exception. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.
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