Flavours of Greece: The Best of Classic and Modern Greek Cooking, with Over 200 Recipes

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Rosemary Barron

Used from £34.95

Pages: 385 (Hardcover)

ISBN: 1902304284

Pub: Grub Street

Pub date: 2000-05

Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 731513

Editorial 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

Reader Reviews:

Full of Praise (3/3 people found this helpful)

I came across this very interesting cookery book recently. I gather that it won a 'Best Cookery book on Foreign Cuisine (in English) at the Worlds Cookbook Fair recently.I have prepared over 30 recipes from this excellent book and we have enjoyed each one. Having travelled in Greece and Cyprus(Greek part) I have always enjoyed the food that is to be found outside of the cities. This is the first recipe book I have found that not only provides recipes, but superb background information on the past history of the Country. It probably takes a writer who was born outside of the Country they are researching, to give such a credible overall view of its cuisine. I remember reading some brilliant reviews in the Press about the author's cooking school on Crete and Santorini in days gone by when Cooking schools were virtually unknown outside of the big cities. This new book has pride of place on my kitchen-book shelf.

Reminiscent of Elizabeth David's mouthwatering writing (0/0 people found this helpful)

This is a beautifully written book on Greek cooking and Greece and one that clearly shows how to create freshly cooked Greek cuisine wherever you live. If you think Greek cooking consists of Moussaka and nothing else, you must read this. I've cooked four of the dishes so far and all have been perfect. This is one of those books you can read as a book about Greece, its customs and people as well as learning how to cook in a simple and easy way the most mouthwatering dishes. It makes one want to jump on the next plane to Greece. I highly recommend this book.

Well-written book on national & regional food of Greece (2/2 people found this helpful)

This is a very good book packed full of information and interesting recipes. In the first chapter 'The Greek Kitchen', ingredients and kitchen equipments are explained carefully, and it also tells you how to make basic ingredients such as wine vinegar, yogurt, fresh cheese and preserved lemons. Although I didn't manage to make vinegar successfully, it was fun trying to make things you normally buy. Barron writes with enthusiasm and love for the people and food of Greece, it almost transfers you to a small village where people still cook traditional food and many things are shared by everyone. Recipes are quite interesting, much are kind of food you only encounter by visiting obscure village tavernas or people's homes. The book contains more commom things like moussaka, tsasiki and cheese pies, but these are more complexly flavoured and her version of cheese pies are rather unusual salty-sweet, flavoured with orange-flower water. I think most recipes in this book produces fine results (black olives and lentil salata, aromatic giant beans were delicious) however some can be difficult to figure out since there are no pictures. For example, I found the recipe for lamb's innards sausage (kokoretsi) a little misleading. One can easily imagine this is shaped like normal sausage although it is in fact looks like a kind of worm as the casings are wrapped around the stuffing like string. Anyway this is just a minor flaw, and the book is wonderfully written, capturing the best flavours of Greece.

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