Book review - Tessa Kiros - Food From Many Greek Kitchens

I've been a fan of Tessa Kiros for a while and especially adore her books Apples for Jam:Recipes for Life and Venezia: Food and Dreams, so when Murdoch Books offered me the latest offering from Tessa to review I lept at the chance. I was especially excited to learn that her new book Tessa Kiros - Food From Many Greek Kitchens was about her Greek heritage (her father is Greek-Cypriot) and Greek cooking. On my gap year I travelled Europe and the cuisine in Greece was my favourite of the huge variety I sampled.

Contents

1. Traditional Foods
2. Fasting Foods
3. Easter Foods
4. Shared Foods
5. Baker's Foods
6. Soups
7. Ladera + Salads
8. Ready Cooked Foods
10. Sweet Foods

If you're used to Tessa's previous books you won't be surprised to hear that it's a truly beautiful book. The photographs of food and snippets of Greek life are both inspiring and evocative. I felt as though I was dipping into a very well photographed family scrap book.
The recipes range from typical Greek dishes that you'll have heard of like baklava and spanakoptia and new dishes that I'm desperate to try such as mayiritsa, lemon and oregano lamb, a whole list of the soups or ouzo sorbet.

The art of celebration with food is ever present, never more so than in the recipe for Vasilopita, a cake served at new year. A coin is baked into the cake and if you're the lucky so and so to get the slice with the coin you shall, according to tradition, be blessed for the year. With celebration comes family and community, great sharing platters of food, passed among generations of family and friends.

Kiros adds a bit of history, a personal approach, interesting tip, or family story before each recipe. Her likening the pattern of baklava to a Chanel bag was both spot on and amusing at the same time. I like to read books by people who see these kinds of things, who see more than just food on a plate. Kiros' approach to recipe writing is to tell of memories and experience, to paint portraits of the festival of eating using her words. She is a woman who sees the tales of one's kitchen as a family history not just what filled people up when family history is being made. Food is the family, food is the history. That drips from this (if the Greeks don't ooze family and community, who does?) and all of the Tessa Kiros books I have read so far.

Downfalls of the book? Perhaps I need to book an appointment with an optician but the blue/green text on a white background is something I really struggled with. I fear that the beautiful design may have come before accessibility of use when putting this book together, but I made the cumin meatballs (delicious) without too much trouble, so don't let my moaning about my eyes becoming old and useless put you off having a go with this book.
Apart from that I'd say this is a great book for anyone who wants an overview of Greek cooking or indeed family feasts. It is however not just a recipe book, it's a document of family and community, it's a book of sharing and celebration. I'd recommend it to anyone passionate about family or food or both together, as they more often than not are.


TTFN,