Mediterranean, Mideastern Recipes : International Cookbook Authors Compile Treats

If you are a collector of international cookbooks, you may want to add these three books covering Mediterranean and Middle Eastern cuisines to your repertoire.

Mediterranean Cookery by Claudia Roden (Knopf: $24.95, hard cover, 224 pp., illustrated)

The aim is a simple one: present the styles of home cooking from places around the Mediterranean, and Claudia Roden, a cookbook veteran, does just that.

You get tapas from Spain, antipasti from Italy, mezze (dips, cheesy rissoles, fritters and savory pies) from the Middle East, seafood dishes such as bourride from Provence and a seafood stew from Catalan.

There are kebabs, and tajines from Morocco and luscious baklavas from the Arab world where the Mediterranean touches the land.

It’s a nice work for those who want to dabble with some dependability in the specialties of different Mediterranean countries. Roden, who currently teaches Middle Eastern cookery in London, was born and raised in Cairo and traveled extensively in the Mediterranean regions she covers in her book.

The Complete Book of Turkish Cooking by Ayla Esen Algar (Kegan Paul International: $17.95, paperback, 335 pp., illustrated)

One can hardly speak of Middle Eastern or Mediterranean cooking without crediting Turkish cuisine for its rich contribution. Straddling two continents--Asia and Europe--Turkey has faced East and West in its culinary evolution.

Manti, a filled dumpling similar to won ton, actually derived from contact with Chinese during trade throughout the early centuries. Borek can be traced to the early centuries of Turkish association with Islam and remains a mainstay of the Turkish cuisine.

Ayla Esen Algar’s scholarly approach to the cuisine gives depth to what might have been a loving-hands-at-home book. The reader will enjoy reading not only the recipes--which cover an incredible range of categories including soups, appetizers, fish, meats, rice, stuffed vegetables and meats, salads, rice dishes, pasta dishes, borek (filo pastry dishes), traditional sweets, teatime specialties, yogurt dishes and Turkish beverages--but the historical information that puts into perspective the contributions of Turkish cuisine.

Thousands of years of trade, exposure to foreign goods and the rich Byzantine and Ottoman traditions have provided this already vital Middle Eastern cuisine with refinement not found elsewhere in the Middle East.

The fullest and most elaborate development of Turkish cuisine took place during the Ottoman period from the 14th Century to the 19th Century in the palaces of sultans, Algar writes. “As the feeding of the sultan took on a ceremonial aspect, symbolic of his lofty power, the staff of the palace kitchen grew both in number and in complexity of organization. At the end of the 16th Century, there were 200 servants at most employed in preparing food for the palace; only 50 years later, the palace kitchen staff had swollen to 1,370.”

Lebanese Mountain Cookery by Mary Laird Hamady (David R. Godine Publisher, Inc.: $19.95, 278 pp., illustrated)

I can see this book in the collection of children of Middle Eastern parents as easily as in the libraries of those who are naturally curious about the way food is used throughout the world. Both groups will learn something about the simple ingredients that have bridged the gap between East and West cuisines, thanks to the trade routes transferring foods over thousands of years.

The sun-baked mountainous land of central Lebanon, birthplace of the author’s mother-in-law, is the focus of the the book’s recipes. Wheat in form of bulgur, the nutty grains that are used like rice in the Orient, is turned into meaty soup or a stew with lamb. Yogurt is the basis of sauces eaten with vegetables or meats. Eggs are made into omelets with pine nuts. Vegetables are frittered, fried, stewed and sauteed. The desserts are typically Arabic--syrupy doughnuts, baklava, shortbread cookies and creamy rice pudding flavored with orange flower water.