Mediterranean Harvest: Vegetarian Recipes from the World’s Healthiest Cuisine

236 Pages·2007·1.7 MB·English

by  Martha Rose Shulman

M
EDITERRANEAN
H
ARVEST
“Martha Rose Shulman’s cuisine has always been blessed by the sun, fired by her own personal energy,
colored by the rainbow-hued produce of the Mediterranean. Martha’s experience, expertise, and
professionalism shine through loud and clear in this marvelous book!”
— Patricia Wells, author of Vegetable Harvest
“Mediterranean Harvest is Martha Rose Shulman’s most delectable harvest of recipes yet! This is a
treasure trove for all good eaters.”
— Deborah Madison, author of Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone and Local Flavors
“I love Martha Rose Shulman’s food. It is always comforting and full of love. She brings us on a culinary
journey, sharing wonderful recipes that jump from the pages with tips that seem endless. Pleasure pours
from the pages with the perfect juxtaposition of exotic and comfort food. Travel with Martha on an
unhurried journey of flavor and adventure. Just as Mediterranean food must be savored, Martha’s recipes
make you want to create and savor every bite.”
— Sherry Yard, Executive Pastry Chef, Spago
“There’s nobody’s table I’d rather eat at than Martha Rose Shulman’s. Her food is always delicious and
direct to the point, the way home cooking is supposed to be—good cooking not as an ostentatious display,
but as a natural and necessary component of good living. Mediterranean Harvest captures that spirit
perfectly. If you want endlessly complicated dishes you will slave over for a whole weekend, look elsewhere.
If you just want to feed your friends and family good food you know they’ll enjoy, this is the book for you.”
— Russ Parsons, Los Angeles Times food columnist and author of How to Pick a Peach
“Mediterranean Harvest proves that eating vegetables can be the greatest of pleasures. The recipes are
fabulous and easy to follow. Even better, they are Mediterranean, which means they could not be more
delicious. I can’t think of a healthier or happier way of eating.”
— Marion Nestle, professor of nutrition, food studies, and public health at New York University
and author of What to Eat
“What I love about Martha Shulman’s newest creation is . . . everything. Her vast experience and
knowledge, her voice, the luscious breadth of flavor and textures in the recipes, all of which are calculated
to get the cook—whether experienced or novice—into the kitchen. This book is a must in anyone’s
collection.”
— Susan Herrmann Loomis, author of Cooking at Home on Rue Tatin
MEDITERRANEAN
HARVEST
VEGETARIAN RECIPES
FROM THE WORLD'S
HEALTHIEST CUISINE
MARTHA ROSE SHULMAN

To Liam Max Shulman Grantham,
world traveler, fearless eater,
cool dude, wonderful boy
CONTENTS
Preface
Introduction
COOKING MEDITERRANEAN FOOD
A FEW APERITIFS TO WHET YOUR APPETITE
BREADS, PIZZA, AND PANINI
SAUCES, DRESSINGS, AND CONDIMENTS
LITTLE FOODS: STARTERS, SNACKS, MEZE, AND MORE
SOUPS
EGGS AND CHEESE
PASTA
SAVORY PIES AND GRATINS
VEGETABLES AND BEANS
RICE, COUSCOUS, AND OTHER GRAINS
SWEETS AND DESSERTS
Acknowledgments
Online Sources for Mediterranean Ingredients
Select Bibliography
Recipes by Region
Index
About the Author
PREFACE
THE CUISINES OF THE MEDITERRANEAN CAPTURED MY TASTE
BUDS long ago, certainly long before I knew I was going to have a career as a
cook and cookbook author. I can trace it back to a poetic moment. I was fifteen
years old, picnicking on a canal somewhere in the South of France with a bunch
of privileged teenagers and a couple of French counselors, on a high school kids'
European tour. I held in my hand the largest peach I'd ever seen. I took a big
bite. The sensations went on and on: juice, sweetness, perfume, a flavor deeper
than any peach flavor I'd ever known. The color was a dark, expressive yellow
with tinges of pink. The aroma continued long after I'd swallowed.
I'm not as cavalier about discussing my age as I used to be. So let us just say
that more than a few decades have gone by since that moment. Yet the memory
doesn't fade. I can recall every bite of the peach, right down to the pit. I have
only one other food memory from that trip, which took my brother Peter and me
all over Europe, from Switzerland to Germany and Austria, to Paris and Spain,
and to Italy. It was a plate of pasta. We'd just arrived in Venice and gone to
lunch at a small trattoria. It was spaghetti, or maybe tagliatelle, with a smooth
tomato sauce, nothing more. What I remember about that pasta is that there
wasn't too much of it (it was a novelty to me that pasta was just the first course
of a meal, followed by fish, salad, and cheese); that the sauce was a pure,
concentrated expression of ripe tomatoes; and that the pasta wasn't swimming in
it. You could see the noodles through the sauce, and when I finished eating them
no sauce remained on the plate.
Eight years passed between that moment on the canal and a moment when,