Book Review: From A Traditional Greek Kitchen

Greek cooking, like most Mediterranean diets, puts an emphasis on fresh fruits and vegetables with a smattering of meats thrown in. Naturally, vegetarians are drawn to this cuisine.
Aphrodite Polemis’ From A Traditional Greek Kitchen is a 192-page gem of a cookbook that highlights the best of vegetarian Greek cooking with unique and flavorful recipes. We are all familiar with dishes such as Spanakopita, or spinach pie, and Baklava that decadently sweet dessert which wraps nuts and honey in crispy filo dough.
But, what about Dolmades and Moussaka? Those contain meat, don’t they? Not once Polemis worked her magic on them.
Polemis re-worked the recipes with the deftness of a surgeon, leaving little or no scar, so even those who eat meat would hardly notice the ingredient missing. Before I became a vegetarian, I loved these grape leaves stuffed with ground beef or lamb. I have denied myself these treats until I found her redone recipe, where amped up spices and vegetables shine, to be as satisfying as I remembered the traditional meat-filled version.
Many Greek recipes are work-intensive, though not difficult to make. Patience is an important quality for those taking on these recipes, but Polemis offers clear, succinct instructions so the task seems less daunting and one we know we can accomplish. Perhaps the recipes are not for the novice, but the encouraging style of her writing makes everyone have the courage to try.
At first, I was bothered by the lack of photographs in the book. Perhaps I have been spoiled by the internet where every recipe is accompanied by a full-color photograph so I know what the final product is supposed to look like. Many older cookbooks have few, if any, photos and they are perfectly fine…in fact, they are classics that no cook should be without. The recipes and informative writing in the book more than make up for the lack of illustrations.
Polemis prefaces the recipes with a section in which she paints a lovely picture of the basic Greek larder. She includes a description of necessary ingredients and a glossary of herbs and spices commonly used in the traditional Greek kitchen.
There are recipes for appetizers, soups, salads, sauces, entrées, side dishes, breads, and sweets. She even includes nutritional information for each of the dishes. More importantly, there are helpful hints and advice probably passed down from generations of Greek cooks before her.
Some ethnic cookbooks give you recipes that involve obscure ingredients that you might have to travel back to the old country (or, under the best circumstances, to a big city in this country) to find. Polemis’ recipes are flavorful, using traditional Greek accents and seasonings that are readily available a just about any local grocery store.
From A Traditional Greek Kitchen is published by The Book Publishing Company (http://www.bookpubco.com/) which is a member of the Green Press Initiative. The book is printed with plant-based inks on partially recycled, chlorine free paper.
It sells for $14.95