Flavours of Greece (Penguin Cookery Library) - Softcover

Barron, Rosemary

Softcover

ISBN 10: 014046946X ISBN 13: 9780140469462

Publisher: Penguin, 1994

Synopsis

The Greek philosophy of food is simple - make it fresh and serve it with warmth and gusto. This book celebrates the art of all Greek cooking, both old and new, showing how it has been influenced for centuries by history and its neighbours including Turkey, the Middle East and the Balkans. Dishes covered are appetizers such as marinated olives, fried cheeses, peppered dried figs, dips of yoghurt or aubergine and spices. There are delicate lemon broths and hearty soups, grilled and fried fish and shellfish, lamb, pork and game in every guise, and fresh vegetables but running throughout all the recipes are the flavours of Greek cooking - cinnamon, cumin, oregano, rosemary, garlic, olives, nuts and yoghurt.

About this title

Review

The intoxicating tastes and smells of Greece rise from Rosemary Barron's pages with almost unbearable intensity. Flavours of Greece is a wonderfully evocative portrait of a cuisine still in many ways tied to the seasons and the rhythms of village life. Here are meat or fish scented with bay grilling over olive or pinewood, luscious, aromatic, slow-cooked stews, baked stuffed vegetables, pungently spicy sausages, sweets rich with honey, fruit and nuts. We may think we know Greek food quite well, but Flavours of Greece is packed with recipes that take us a long way from the over-familiar Moussaka, Souvlakia, Kleftiko. In particular, Rosemay Barron, who has run a celebrated Greek cookery school in Crete, has a hoard of enticingly different dishes characteristic of the cooking of the islands, savoury dishes often enriched with honey and spices that hint at both the Ottoman occupation and great antiquity. So besides the more familiar dishes, there are others as diverse as Peppered Dried Figs, Island Aubergines, Baked Sole in Vine Leaves, Turnips and Grapes in Aromatic Sauce, Peppery Grilled Liver, Spinach or Fennel Bread and Glazed Sweet Chestnuts. Crowning the whole magnificent cuisine is the great dish of the Greek Orthodox Easter, Paschal Lamb, traditionally cooked on a spit by men--perhaps a glimpse of the ritual prehistory of the all-male barbecue ceremony. --Robin Davidson

Review

"Practical and charmingly evocative".... Claudia Roden; "Brilliant".... Scotland on Sunday"

Edition details

• Publisher: Penguin
• Publication date: 1994
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 014046946X
• ISBN 13: 9780140469462
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 288