A caveat: I first met Mindy Fox, the co-author of this book, when I was an intern at Salamander, a now-defunct restaurant in Cambridge, MA, where she was a well-established line cook. We've been friends ever since. I am not reviewing this cookbook simply because she's a friend - I'm reviewing this cookbook because it is a genuinely useful, well-written, and advice-laden personal compendium of authentic and inspired recipes from all over the Mediterranean that will be appreciated by both the novice cook and the more experienced one. And now the review....
I'm a cynic when it comes to new cookbooks. There's little under the sun that hasn't been written before, and many of the new offerings are simply vanity titles from big-name chefs that present little in the way of genuine kitchen knowledge and understanding. Mostly the new breed of cookbooks is useful for the food photography. The sumptuous pictures of perfectly styled entrees and side-dishes are too frequently coupled with ego-handed prose that is more self-promotion than enlightenment for the home cook. Sometimes the recipes are overly complicated or difficult to accomplish with limited time and budgets. Sometimes the kitchen lore is full of inaccuracy, myth, and/or food science voodoo. Sometimes the cookbook is spare of details and little more than indexed recipes with a smattering of food porn. And, occasionally, just occasionally, it is right on target.
Olives and Oranges: Recipes & Flavor Secrets from Italy, Spain, Cyprus & Beyond (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, September 2008) is one of the few cookbooks I've seen this year that hits the target. Sara and Mindy's primary assumption about their readers is that they are intelligent, thoughtful, and are interested in creating both authentic Mediterranean cuisine and cuisine inspired by the Mediterranean, and learning how to harness flavor in the food they design at home with whatever they have on hand. Rather than dictate a cooking orthodoxy, Sara and Mindy seek to inspire the home cook with their deceptively simple recipes. The tone of the book is friendly and inviting - Sara and Mindy want you to be comfortable with the food they are presenting and comfortable improvising on that food.
Sara shares a lot of personal anecdotes about her childhood and teen years spent abroad as the daughter of an American foreign correspondent and a famous food writer (Nancy Harmon Jenkins) in a way that is surprisingly modest and familiar. Sara's descriptions of time spent in Italy, Cyprus, Spain and Lebanon are folksy and warm rather than pretentious or gloating. What could have been a elitist and off-putting exploration of a childhood lived in privilege is instead a warm hug, a suggestion of possibility, and many interesting and diverse recipes, from slow-cooked soups to liqueurs to pasta to hearty meat dishes and everything in-between. The recipes assume carnivorality, though many (with the exception of center-of-the-plate protein dishes and ragus) can be adapted to be vegetarian friendly. The small plates chapter, in particular, provides interesting recipes that will please most vegetarians.
In general, each recipe provides helpful hints about where to buy ingredients, substitutions that the cook can make, handling instructions, a few food science tips, and the approximate length of time the recipe will take - quick cook or slow cook. Each section has a informative, instructive introduction of about two pages, where Sara and Mindy offer advice. I learned an interesting method for dressing a salad to retain crispness of the greens by reading the chapter on, what else, salads:
"When I am ready to eat, I dress the greens with a vinaigrette that I've made some sharp mustard or with a 3:1 ratio of extra-virgin olive oil to acid (fresh lemon juice or vinegar). The oil and acid are added in a precise sequence: first the oil to coat the leaves, then salt, then the acid, which is buffered by the oil and won't wilt the leaves as it would if added first. Finally a twist of the pepper grinder - and that's it."
Scattered throughout the book are page-long guides to specific methods and kitchen basics, easily my favorite part of the book. There's a section on making chicken broth, which every cook should have on hand; a page on risotto, written with the intention of demystifying the process of the oft-made but seldom perfected Italian classic; a half-page on the ins and outs of vinaigrette; shredded root salads warrant a third-of-a-page explanation; and a helpful exploration of meat ragus help the home cook understand how to improvise on the classic recipe. For me, the most important guide is the first full chapter, called "My Flavor Pantry," which explains why certain ingredients need to be on hand to prepare simple and delicious Mediterranean-inspired meals. It provides both watch outs ("make sure "San Marzano" tomatoes actually come from Italy, not elsewhere") and handling instructions ("Keep nuts away from heat and light. The best places is in sealed freezer bags in the freezer (the nuts don't need to be defrosted before toasting or cooking).").
The tips I mentioned are just a handful from the dozens and dozens scattered throughout the book. In the press release, the publishing company wrote out "10 Flavor Tips from Olives & Oranges", a list of 10 extremely helpful tips that will help the home cook improve, what else, flavor in any given dish. I could share them with you but then I'd take the surprise out of this interesting, beautifully photographed cookbook. You'll just have to buy it and see it for yourself.
Olives & Oranges won't replace your country-specific Mediterranean cookbooks but it serves as a helpful companion to them, giving color and explanation that will satisfy the curious cook. More importantly, it provides multiple jumping off points for kitchen improvisation, a skill that has been widely lost in this era of processed food and restaurant dependence.
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