Cretan Cookery/Greek Cooking - The review.

You will certainly be in no two minds about Greek food. You will either love it or you will loathe it. If you loathe it, the chances are you have only ever eaten tourist taverna food, produced without love and care in an overheated seaside kitchen. It may have been a scrawny piece of chicken served up half warm, accompanied by tepid soggy chips, a ‘moussaka’ that contained almost nothing except a béchamel sauce, or even a ‘pasticcio’ that weighed as much as a brick and tasted pretty much the same.  If you love it, it is surely because you have been lucky enough to eat in a Greek home, where ingredients are fresh that day, where the eggs are from the hens at the end of the garden, where the tomatoes and the courgettes were still warm from the sun when they went into the pan, and the cheese is from the nanny goat chewing thoughtfully under the fig tree. 

I have always found Greek recipe books deeply unsatisfactory until I came across these two titles.  ‘Cretan cookery’ has become my bible, as can be seen when you flick through its heavily-splashed pages. (Why don’t cookery books have wipe-clean pages, I wonder?) And if I am unable to find the recipe I want in that one, I invariably turn to ‘Greek Cooking’. Between the two of them, they pretty well have it covered! 

‘Cretan Cookery’ is, alas, a paperback, and will doubtless need replacing every few years.  But apart from that minor criticism, plus the fact that I wish all the recipes had been given their Greek name as well as the English one, I can thoroughly recommend it. Without fail, every recipe I have attempted has turned out really well, and Cretan friends – who would be the severest audience (only too happy to offer friendly advice/constructive criticism) happily eat the results. It contains the secrets to such toothsome Cretan delicacies as Grape Must Jelly (you need to add potash), and 'Xerotigana' (a glass of Tsikouthia is the magic ingredient), plus all you need to know about cooking 'Horta' (but not, alas, how to select it in the wild), plus many other family favourites. It also has an illustration for almost every recipe, to whet the appetite and stimulate the cook’s imagination. 

Now the purists – and the non-squeamish – among you may be searching high and low for the recipe for Easter Soup –'Mayieritsa'. You will not find it in ‘Cretan Cookery’, but you will find it in ‘Greek Cooking’, together with many other delicacies from mainland Greece and the islands. I have to confess I have yet to even taste this, let alone make it, so we will quickly move onto something else. 

‘Greek Cookery’ initially attracted my attention because it has a foreword by Jennifer Paterson, the ‘late’ one of the Two Fat Ladies, who has been reincarnated as our local priest’s wife. Honestly – we are talking about cloning here!  But that frivolous reason for my purchasing the book turned out to be a good investment. It has a huge number of delicious-sounding recipes. The instructions too, are precise and never include that rage-inducing direction to “cook until ready”. 

No illustrations are included in the book, so you are never totally sure of what your dish will look like until it is ready. When I am looking for inspiration I prefer to see a few pictures, but this book is obviously aimed at a more worthy and serious cook than me. But as well as the recipes, it is also very informative about Greek wines and cheeses. 

So, you make the choice, and whichever you buy, Kali orexi (enjoy your meal)!