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Title: The Foods of the Greek Islands: Cooking and Culture at the Crossroads of the Mediterranean by Aglaia Kremezi, Jim Botsacos ISBN: 0-395-98211-1 Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Company Pub. Date: 01 November, 2000 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $37.50 |
Average Customer Rating: 5 (5 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Facinating Exposition of a Culinary Crossroads
Comment: Everyone has to eat. People with something in common tend to eat the same diet. A diet commonly becomes a homogeneous, identifiable cuisine based on a common cultural heritage and a common terroir, the products of the region's agriculture, animal husbandry, hunting, and gathering. Based on these simple observations, it is easy to see why the cuisines of Provence, Tuscany, Alsace, Apulia, Emilia-Romagna, Morocco, Mexico, Japan, Canton, and Szechwan are interesting. These observations also make it very easy to wonder why anyone other than a native of the Greek Islands would be interested in the cuisine of the Greek Islands, separate from the cuisine of mainland Greece. This issue was not obvious to me until I read award winning Aglaia Kremezi's book.
The first source of wonder is the great cultural diversity affecting the history of these islands. Many of the islands have gone through rule by ancient Greece (typically lead by the Athens city-state), Rome, Byzantium (Eastern Roman Empire), Islam, Ottomans, Italians (specifically Venetian and Genoese), Turkey, and Modern Greece. The second source of wonder is the agricultural poverty of many of the islands. Some larger islands such as Crete, Lesbos, and Chios seem to have a viable agriculture, but most of the smaller islands need imported food to survive. The third and most amazing source of wonder about the Greek Island cuisine is the lack of seafood. There is literally so little commerce in seafood on the islands of the Aegean that there are no fish mongers on most islands. The reasons are that, apparently, the number and size of fish in the Aegean is simply very small, and, all the good stuff gets shipped off to Athens for sale in the markets of the capital. This is why salt cod from Portugal or Scandinavia is one of the most commonly cooked seafoods. The only local seafood that seems to be prominent in the island cuisine is the mollusks (squid, cuttlefish, and octopus). It doesn't end there. It is also true that traditionally, there is very little baking done on most islands, as there is very little wood remaining on the islands after thousands of years of habitation. About the only thing really distinctive of the islands' cuisine is the foodstuffs which can be foraged.
And yet, this cuisine is interesting and distinctive. I cannot say with any authority how distinctive the island cuisine is from the Greek and Turkish mainland, as I have yet to read and review books on Greek or Turkish cuisine, but I can say that there are things which set it apart from the general world of the Eastern Mediterranean.
The most distinctive preparation of the Greek Island cuisine according to the recipes in this book seem to be 'Savory Pitas and Pies' encrusted with either a Cretan phyllo dough, a standard pastry dough, or commercial puff pastry. Most of the savory pie contents are vegetables and cheese, with fennel, leeks, onion, tomato, feta, zucchini, and eggplant being the most popular. Lamb is definitely the favorite meat filling, but pork, octopus, and salt cod appear as well. The variety lies not only in the fillings and crusts, but also in the shapes and methods of preparation. Some are shaped like empanadas and fried, some are shaped and prepared like calzones, some are prepared in a coil from a roulade, some look like pot pies straight from the Pennsylvania Dutch.
Another distinctive element of island cuisine is the meze, which the author at one point mistakenly translates as 'hors d'ourves'. Diane Kochilas, an authoritative writer on Greek cuisine, in her book 'Mezes' says Meze, short for mezethes, denotes small dishes served typically at small eateries like 'mezethopoleion'. Even our author describes these dishes as being much more similar to something eaten at an afternoon break than as a pre-dinner starter. If you need a French term for them, 'amuse bouche' may be more appropriate.
Other chapters are 'Fish and Seafood (Scarce but Excellent)', Succulent Meat (Lamb, Pork, Veal and Chicken)', 'Beans, Rice, Bulgur, and Pasta', 'Seasonal Salads, Vegetables and Potatoes', 'Bread', and 'Island Desserts'.
The prominence of pies, pasta, and breads in the island cuisine makes up another great mystery in that Crete was identified as the epicenter of the healthy 'Mediterranean' diet. The puzzle is how the high incidence of cooked rice and processed wheat in the diet and the apparent less than expected incidence of seafood leads to a healthy diet. What about all those carbs!!! I'm not a fan of low carb diets, but I just thought I would bring out that anomaly to entertain your mind, dear reader.
Greek ingredients are almost as easily found in our megamarts as are Italian foods, but there are some ingredients for which you will have to go out of your way to acquire. Aleppo pepper, in particular, seems to show up in almost every savory recipe. Another problem with ingredients is the author's claim that Atlantic and Pacific fish simply cannot reproduce the taste of fish taken from the Ionian or Aegean seas.
In spite of all the puzzles this book creates for me, I must say that this book is a worthy exposition of a cuisine. Think of it as the food of Achilles and Odysseus from the movie 'Troy'.
The photography of the people of the Greek islands is evocative. The photography of the dishes is average. Each recipe is identified by its Greek name with a useful English translation. All recipes are good, some are extraordinary. Some are easy, many, especially the pitas and pies, are involved. The author's identifications of the island(s) from which the dishes came are inconsistent. Sometimes it is in the title, sometimes it is in the headnote, and sometimes it is absent.
This book is excellent if you have no familiarity with Greek or Eastern Mediterranean cuisine and you are adventuresome in the kitchen. And, the story of the terroir of the Greek islands is as interesting as the food itself. Opa!
Rating: 5
Summary: My dinner actually turned out great!
Comment: I wanted to make a special dinner for my boyfriend and chose a Greek theme, mainly using recipes from this book, inclduing Friend Zucchini and Cheese and Shrimp w/Tomato and Feta. The whole dinner was simple enough (and I am a novice cook) and the ingredients were easily available. There are also interesting tidbits for most of the recipes, making reading the cookbook as fun as cooking out of it. Best of all, the food was delicious, and he said it reminded him almost exactly of the food he ate during his trip to the Greek Islands last summer. I will definetly be turning to this cookbook again and again.
Rating: 5
Summary: Excellent book especially for one cooking outside of Greece!
Comment: I got this book as a Christmas present, and I was very pleasantly surprised. Aglaia Kremezi has always had the reputation of a gourmet cook, so I felt intimidated to try any of her recipes, because I thought they would be quite complicated and easy to fail for a home cook. Quite the contrary!! This is an excellent book, with very detailed descriptions and insightful information on original Greek dishes (as a Greek who just moved to the US from Greece, I can say that this is the REAL thing, very far from anything touristy or artificial).
All the dishes I have tried until now have been a success, and two are the main reasons: 1. The recipes have been adapted to the modern way of cooking 2. The ingredients have also been adapted so that one can find them outside of Greece without compromising in taste or authenticity. There is also a very helpful list of US sources for original Greek products.
I definitely recommend this book! It's one of the best cookbooks I own -- and trust me, I own many...
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Title: The Foods of Greece by Aglaia Kremezi, Martin Brigdale ISBN: 1556709560 Publisher: Stuart, Tabori and Chang Pub. Date: 03 August, 1999 List Price(USD): $30.00 |
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Title: The Glorious Foods of Greece: Traditional Recipes from Islands, Cities, and Villages by Diane Kochilas ISBN: 0688154573 Publisher: Morrow Cookbooks Pub. Date: 10 April, 2001 List Price(USD): $40.00 |
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Title: The Complete Book of Greek Cooking by St. Paul's Greek Orthodox Church ISBN: 0060921293 Publisher: Quill Pub. Date: 05 June, 1991 List Price(USD): $21.95 |
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Title: The Complete Greek Cookbook : The Best From 3000 Years Of Greek Cooking by Theresa Karas Yianilos ISBN: 0962114200 Publisher: Jolla Book Publishing Pub. Date: 14 August, 2000 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
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Title: Meze : Small Plates to Savor and Share from the Mediterranean Table by Diane Kochilas ISBN: 0688175112 Publisher: Morrow Cookbooks Pub. Date: 03 June, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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