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Title: Couscous and Other Good Food from Morocco by Paula Wolfert ISBN: 0-06-091396-7 Publisher: Quill Pub. Date: 29 April, 1987 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $19.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 5 (10 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Everything in its shadow
Comment: The problem with the first major book on a cuisine being the best is everyone writing books afterward feels they have to change things, usually for the worse.
For instance, if I were to write a Moroccan cookbook today, the best I could do is one line, directing the reader to buy this book instead.
Otherwise, I would have to try to simplify recipes to their detriment, clutter them up with disastrous result, or scrape the bottom of the barrel for more original recipes that aren't particularly good.
So even though this book has few illustrations and was written in the 70's, if you actually want to cook Moroccan food you really don't have any choice. You simply must buy this book and cook through it because every other author on the subject has done the same and cowers in the shadow of this achievement.
Rating: 5
Summary: The best and most authentic book on Moroccan food!
Comment: I can not praise this book enough! It deserves more than 5 stars! The recipes are wonderful and truly AUTHENTIC; the ingredients are simple and easy to find in any market or store. And the recipes are delicious! They take me back to Morocco! I love the fact that the book is not only recipes but little facts, stories, adventures and knowledge about Morocco as well. It reads as a cookbook and a story book all in one! I envy all the years she got to spend there and the knowledge she learned from the other cooks in Morocco! This book is a MUST for anyone who loves to try different foods and especially if you have a Moroccan friend, fiance or husband. They will be suitably impressed with your skill and will wonder where you learned how to make the food! My husband absolutely loves that I have learned how to cook some dishes that he is used to eating in his homeland. I also recommend if you get this book, get Kitty Morse's as well; they go hand in hand like a set. You will have a good Moroccan food base to cook for quite some time to come!
Rating: 5
Summary: First Book by the World Class Culinary Writer. A classic
Comment: This is Paula Wolfert's first book, originally published in 1973, which makes the case that Moroccan food comprises one of the world's great cuisines, on a par with French, Italian, Indian, Chinese, and Japanese. I am not certain she has succeeded, but she has certainly done an excellent job in presenting the case. In laying out her discussion, she contributes a major addition to the dialogue on how great cuisines arise. Her claim is that four conditions are needed:
1. A great variety of local food sources.
2. A wide variety of cultural influences.
3. A great civilization, in this case, the juncture of Islamic Arabs and local Berbers joining to form a group vital enough to conquer medieval Spain.
4. A local palace culture to serve as an impetus to creating new dishes.
Paula claims that Morocco fulfills all conditions and if I believe her presentation is accurate, I am willing to believe her case. My only uncertainty is due to my inexperience in other North African cuisines, so I cannot tell if Morocco stands head and shoulders above, for example, the cuisine of Tunisia or Egypt. Of one thing I am sure. Her contention about the four conditions for a great cuisine make a major contribution to my thinking on the subject. It expands greatly the simpler claim of John Thorne that what you need is the memory of a great civilization. If one applies this criterion to all the cuisines I list in the first paragraph, it is clear this list has the ring of truth about it. My main argument against the case for Moroccan cuisine is that aside from couscous, there are no other distinctive world beating food products, unlike Italy's riches in types of cheese, wine, vinegar, breads, and cured meats.
For the sake of this book, the value of the argument is not so much in the validity of the conclusion as it is in the passion Ms. Wolfert brings to bear in making the case. Every cuisine should have as vital and knowledgeable an advocate as we see here.
The book begins with a brief history of how the mix of peoples created the current Moroccan population and where the centers of Moroccan food culture lie. (I am surprised that Casablanca, the city best known to Americans, seems to play virtually no part in the story of Moroccan history or cuisine. All the real action seems to revolve around Fez, Marrakesh, Tetuan, and many other inland cities.) She opens discussion of Morocco today with a description of the Souks or open air markets common in all Moroccan cities. This includes an enumeration of the spices and herbs most important to Moroccan cuisine. The first thing which surprises me is the geographical distribution of the sources for all these spices. Few are native to the African Mediterranean or Atlantic coast. This chapter has some of the few items which date the book. The first observation is the use of the term 'salad oil', common in the US through the 60's, but probably quite foreign to labels in today's supermarket. A second oddity is the statement that the reader may have a hard time finding cilantro (in 1973). In 2003, with the popularity of both Mexican and Southeast Asian cuisine, you can hardly miss it in the most modest supermarket. The opening chapter includes general discussions of other basics such as oil, eggs, butter, chickpeas, honey, preserved meat, and couscous grain. Detailed chapters cover:
Bread
Soups
Salads and Vegetables
Savory Pastries
Couscous
Fish
Poultry
Meats
Desserts
Beverages
Next to couscous, the star of this book is an extremely elaborate dish named Bisteeya which for all the world appears to be the model for the song line 'Four and Twenty blackbirds baked in a pie', as it includes the bodies of many pigeons plus exactly 24 hens eggs! But this is just a footnote to the real drama surrounding Wolfert's discussion of this dish. Others have suggested that Bisteeya originated in Andalusia, as if so complicated a dish must originate in Spain, on European soil. From both linguistic and culinary arguments, Ms. Wolfert makes the case that the dish is purely Moroccan, with the pastry, warga, while very similar to strudel dough and Phyllo dough is actually derived, probably through the Arabs contact with Persia, from the method for making Chinese Spring rolls. Who knew! The technique for making warga is not for the uncommitted so, thankfully, commercially available strudel or phyllo dough will work just fine.
The recipes in this book do not require a lot of hard to find ingredients in today's markets and they do not require a lot of special tools except for a couscouserie, which can be improvised from a colander and a stockpot. Also, while Paula does all that is needed to make the recipes at home in an American kitchen, I almost believe that one should not dip into this book casually. The best approach to cooking from this book would be to invest in a real couscouserie and track down a source for some of the more obscure ingredients and a good source of organic free range poultry and prepare several different recipes over the course of a few months. One warning is that most recipes tend to be written for a relatively large number of servings, based on the Moroccan style of eating from a central plate with your fingers and the famous Moroccan hospitality of plenty.
This book is a treasure, if you have the least scintilla of interest in the subject. Without even that, being exposed to Ms. Wolfert's passion about food in its full flower is worth the price of admission. I can only wish I would know someone with her feelings about food.
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Title: Cooking at the Kasbah: Recipes from My Moroccan Kitchen by Kitty Morse, Laurie Smith ISBN: 081181503X Publisher: Chronicle Books Pub. Date: 01 October, 1998 List Price(USD): $22.95 |
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Title: The Slow Mediterranean Kitchen : Recipes for the Passionate Cook by Paula Wolfert ISBN: 0471262889 Publisher: Wiley Pub. Date: 22 September, 2003 List Price(USD): $34.95 |
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Title: Cafe Morocco by Anissa Helou ISBN: 0809226677 Publisher: McGraw-Hill/Contemporary Books Pub. Date: 01 February, 1999 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: Mediterranean Grains and Greens : A Book of Savory, Sun-Drenched Recipes by Paula Wolfert ISBN: 0060172517 Publisher: HarperCollins Pub. Date: 01 September, 1998 List Price(USD): $27.50 |
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Title: Mediterranean Cooking Revised Edition by Paula Wolfert ISBN: 0880014024 Publisher: Ecco Pub. Date: 01 November, 1994 List Price(USD): $23.00 |
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