Paula WolfertReviews

A variety of recipes. I'll be trying a few.

There are some fine recipes here, I've tried the Beet salad (best I've had yet) and Pomegranate Molasses (very good and simple). I intend to try a few more before I give this cookbook away. Why am I giving it away? Many of the recipes are more complicated than I care to reproduce, call for ingredients or tools which it would be hard and expensive for me to find, or for ingredients I avoid eating (nightshade plants such as tomatoes, potatoes, eggplant).

Assumptions this author makes:
Everyone cooks on a gas stove
Everyone lives in a big city with a Middle Eastern market to hand
Everyone has a food processor

That being said, the reading experience was enjoyable, I learned about cooking techniques which I was not familiar with before, and an area of the world I will probably never have the luxury to visit. The only photographs are of women from the area. There is a nice map on the inside cover pages.

NA

I put this book, which I have not yet seen, on my wish list because it was highly recommended by a blogger writing about foraging Malva sylvestris. The imaginative use of all greens in traditional Mediterranean cuisine is a topic worth writing about, before we in North America forget what the Italian and Moroccan grandmothers used to weed out of neighbourhood lawns and cook up for dinner.

Traditional and modern recipes to savor and share

For years I looked for a recipe for something a deli I used to go to called the "Megaderra Sandwich." I knew it was refried lentils and onions, wrapped in a flatbread, but could NOT find a recipe for "megaderra" anywhere. Finally I stumbled upon the connection between "megaderra" and "megadarra" and "mujadarrah," and also found out that about 80% of the recipes online for any of the above led back to this book--which I had owned for several years at that point and had somehow NEVER OPENED. I don't even know where I got it.

Anyway, I immediately made the megadarra (which was fantastic), and then started enjoying the book. Paula Wolfert's writing about the food and how she got the recipes through her travels is just wonderful; it's truly an education. The recipes are simple and fresh, often made with only a few ingredients, and the salad recipes are especially a treat. There's a whole chapter on kibbeh, which I don't care for, but I know a couple of kibbeh enthusiasts who would probably be as excited about that as I was about the megadarra.

If you're looking for something different than a "Mediterranean diet"-type cookbook, try to find this book. It's a winner.

This is one of my favorite cookbooks. Rich, deep, light, smooth...it's all here.

This is a sophisticated cookbook full of the kind of recipes that nudge you into experimenting with the recipes and making them your own.

All Paula's books are fun and a source of ideas. This one seems a bit impractical and more eye candy than earlier books such as "Mediterranean Cooking" or "Couscous"

Javaczuk gave me this cookbook after our honeymoon in Normandy decades ago. Haven't tried many, but talk about some glorious things to do with apples and/or Calvados!

Packing away now as we declutter the house, preparing to put it on the market.

I found this anecdote-laden book fascinating, but the recipes required too much time or too many exotic ingredients to be really practical. I got very frustrated. I think you need to be something of a food hobbyist to manage these recipes unless you live near a Middle Eastern grocery. BTW, Wolfert's definition of "Eastern Mediterranean" means Slavic Macedonia and northern Greece, Turkey, the Levant, and the Republic of Georgia. It's her book, she can call it whatever she wants.

Great book, interesting recipes, some 'travel tales'.