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 The
Slow Mediterranean Kitchen: Recipes for the Passionate Cook
by Paula Wolfert
Reviewed
by Kevin Schoeler
Paula
Wolfert clearly loves the Mediterranean—especially
the food and cooking. However, the "friendly but voluptuous
eating experiences" she has written about in six previous
books can be elusive. Thus, she wrote The Slow Mediterranean
Kitchen: Recipes for the Passionate Cook. This is her
(successful) "attempt to recapture the feeling of that
lifestyle, offering recipes to the home cook whereby she
or he may find a measure of contentment in preparing a fine
dish, then serving it to family and friends."
At
first glance, one might surmise that "slow," in
this case, has something to do with the Slow Food movement—the
group dedicated to many noble causes including "slow
careful cooking and slow eating." Wolfert, indeed,
tips her hat to Slow Food, but her book is respectfully
independent and considers the word "slow" in every
culinary sense. "The simple act of salting meat,"
and letting it age a bit is slow. So is combining ingredients
beforehand to let the flavors blend: brining and marinating,
pickling, or curing. Resting food after it has been cooked
is slow, too.
How
do you pick a few good things to try in a book when everything
is stunning? How do you choose between Pot-Roasted Pork
Loin with Fall Fruits or Chicken Smothered in Sweet Onion
Cream with Country Ham? Listen to this: the pork is brined
for a few days, oven-roasted and then rested for two hours.
Then it's briefly cooked in a syrupy blend of dried fruits,
walnuts, sweet wine and spices before a final splash of
fruit-flavored vinegar. The pork dish comes from northern
Greece. The chicken, from southwest France, gets its character
from mountains of sweet onions, Armagnac and Bayonne ham.
To
ease the decision-making, we created a big, brilliant menu
by picking one dish at random from each section. To start,
imagine Chestnuts Roasted on a Bed of Fennel followed by
Tunisian Chickpea Salad marinated with cumin, harissa and
garlic. Then a creamy Chilled Green Pea and Borage Soup.
For
main dishes, a Sicilian-rooted Fresh Tuna with Green Olives,
Capers, Celery and Mint, and Double-Cooked Red Chicken Marrakech-Style.
Here, whole chickens are rubbed with a saffron-cilantro
garlic paste and then cooked with sweet paprika, cumin and
onion. For the finish, they are rubbed with spiced chicken
fat and then broiled. Corsican Brined Pork Chops are served
in a rich tomato sauce spiked with orange juice, olives
and fresh herbs. Slow-Baked Treviso-Style Radicchio is first
quickly fried, then baked, then splashed with good balsamic
vinegar.
One
dessert, however, was not enough. And so, we happily picked
an alluring Fig, Fennel, and Lemon Tart, then Sweet Couscous
with Fresh Pomegranates. Melted butter orange flower water,
pistachios, cinnamon. Life doesn't get much better.
The
Slow Mediterranean Kitchen is not complicated; in fact
it's friendly and approachable. And like a good cooking
book it's tested, detailed and easy-to-follow, with a useful
appendix. Yet this is also a book to linger over and to
savor—there is simply no sense in rushing one of Wolfert's
150-plus dishes when she brings her recipes to life with
vignettes of her Mediterranean, or interesting comments.
Whether she is discussing tagine pots or describing a meal
she ate in a small town on the Turkish-Syrian border, Wolfert's
words are purposeful. It's a pleasure to take this journey
because you know she wants your company.
RECIPE:
CHILLED
GREEN PEA AND BORAGE SOUP
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