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The Bible of Authentic Greek Cooking
Recipes collected by Vefa Alexiadou
Photographs by Edward Park
Phaidon -- 2009
Buy it on Amazon
No longer content to be the neglected little sister to Italian cuisine, Greek cooking has enjoyed quite a renaissance of late, perhaps in part spurred by Michael Psilakis' popular eateries in New York City (Anthos, Kefi, Mia Dona).
When Vefa's Kitchen, a compilation volume from Vefa Alexiadou (trumpeted by press materials as the "leading authority on Greek cookery,") arrived in the mail, we felt optimistic, busily stocking our fridge with Greek yogurt and mint, and the cupboard with garlic and tuna. To give an idea of the book's breadth, there are 14 recipes involving octopus alone.
Takeaway tips: This is a sprawling, 700-page volume, with many different styles of recipes. If you purchase it, be sure to read every recipe all the way through; they are occasionally a bit confusing.
What we tested and whether the book's worth buying, after the jump.
Quality of pictures: Sparely placed photos produce an almost-antiqued quality that makes this feel like the volume of Greek cooking your grandma has been stashing under her bed. We would have loved to see more of them.
We tested: Baked Eggplants
This was a curious recipe. Not only did it call for one large onion or six garlic cloves, a suggestion we'd never seen before, it also neglected some important measurements. It would have been nice to know, for instance, how thick to slice our eggplants ("into 4 to 6 slices, depending on their size" was not terribly helpful when pan-frying them).
We also wondered whether to reserve the tomato seeds and juice or discard them, whether to salt both sides of the slices of eggplant or just one, how small to chop the tomatoes so that they might turn into a sauce and why on earth these eggplant slices needed to be baked for a full two hours. The slices became gummy under its tomato sauce after a mere 30 minutes. That this recipe simply didn't come together for us was a disappointment, and we wished we'd simply stopped after sautéing the eggplant and tossed it with the suggested garlic and tomatoes but also with (heresy!) pasta.
Worth the investment: We can't give this the wholehearted "yes" we'd love to. A spokesperson for the publisher told us that the publisher had tested a "selection" of these recipes, and we found ourselves wishing they'd tested them all, and wondering if this one had made that cut.
That said, we were inspired by the pure breadth of the book, and were grateful to Vefa for having us think in a Greek sort of way. (With the siren call of Greece emanating throughout our kitchen, we made a wicked tuna melt spiked with lemon and mint and thickened with Greek yogurt). So though we wouldn't shell out the hefty cover price tag, we'll keep working our way through this to find the gems surely lurking there.
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8-04-2009 @1:41PM Christina said... My grandmother taught Vefa how to cook after WWII, and helped create some of the recipes that made her famous. I feel sentimental about this book just because of the family ties. The author has several other cookbooks out... if you're interested in authentic Greek food, maybe one of the others would be worth a try! :-)
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8-05-2009 @3:43AM Aris said... I have some of Vefa's other books and they are very good indeed. I would say they are not for the beginner, but certainly for an intermediate cook. All the recipes i've made from them have been fantastic.
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