From Publishers Weekly
Traditional Greek cuisine favors sour tastes: lemons, capers, vinegar, wild herbs. Cooking with these pungent ingredients takes a sure hand or, failing that, a good recipe. Hoffman's book supplies the latter in abundance; it attempts nothing less than to capture the whole of Greek food culture between covers. That includes side notes on language, myth, literature and botany; details of regional specialties; lists of native greens; and an explanation of why we say "Greek" instead of "Hellenic." Like many warm-weather cuisines, Greek food relies on an abundance of grilled meats and fish and dressed greens. Hoffman presents them in dazzling variety, alongside familiar exports like Dolmadakia (stuffed grape leaves) and Tzatziki. Hoffman, an anthropologist and cook, includes recipes that might be challenging or improbable for American home cooks: Retsina-Pickled Octopus, Thyme-Fed Snails and "Greek-inspired ice creams" made with mastic or olive oil. There are labor-intensive recipes, too, showing how to make filo pastry and homemade sourdough noodles. Desserts—Semolina Custard Pie; Yogurt Cake with Ouzo-Lemon Syrup—go far beyond Baklava. With its fascinating trove of information, this work will please armchair cooks and traveling foodies. For those willing to surrender to its searingly bright palate of flavors, it's a boon to the kitchen, too. Photos, illus. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Book Description
This is the year "It's Greek to me" becomes the happy answer to what's for dinner. My Big Fat Greek Wedding, the upcoming epic Troy, the 2004 Summer Olympics returning to Athens--and now, yet another reason to embrace all things Greek: The Olive and the Caper, Susanna Hoffman's 700-plus-page serendipity of recipes and adventure.

In Corfu, Ms. Hoffman and a taverna owner cook shrimp fresh from the trap--and for us she offers the boldly-flavored Shrimp with Fennel, Green Olives, Red Onion, and White Wine. She gathers wild greens and herbs with neighbors, inspiring Big Beans with Thyme and Parsley, and Field Greens and Ouzo Pie. She learns the secret to chewy country bread from the baker on Santorini and translates it for American kitchens. Including 325 recipes developed in collaboration with Victoria Wise (her co-author on The Well-Filled Tortilla Cookbook, with over 258,000 copies in print), The Olive and the Caper celebrates all things Greek: Chicken Neo-Avgolemeno. Fall-off-the-bone Lamb Shanks seasoned with garlic, thyme, cinnamon and coriander. Siren-like sweets, from world-renowned Baklava to uniquely Greek preserves: Rose Petal, Cherry and Grappa, Apricot and Metaxa.

In addition, it opens with a sixteen-page full-color section and has dozens of lively essays throughout the book--about the origins of Greek food, about village life, history, language, customs--making this a lively adventure in reading as well as cooking.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

In this vibrant cookbook, Susanna Hoffman marries respect for tradition with a keen spirit of innovation to celebrate all things Greek. Devoted to food, filled with the passion and voices of people she's lived and cooked with for the past thirty years, The Olive and the Caper is a collection of 250 recipes that are simply and utterly glorious. sIn Corfu, she cooks shrimp fresh from the trap with a local taverna owner -- and offers us a boldly flavored dish of Shrimp with Fennel, Green Olives, Red Onion, and White Wine. She spends an afternoon with a friend grilling eggplant on a balcony in Athens, then develops two spectacular recipes for melanzanosalata (eggplant salad), one urbane and suave, the other rustic and bristling with coarsely chopped vegetables, mint, oregano, and parsley. She learns the secrets of chewy country bread from the baker in Santorini, and translates them for American kitchens.

Here are sizzling souvlaki, long-simmered stews laced with mountain herbs, earthy grains -- includin a hearty Bulgur and Vegetable Pilaf -- and an intriguing combination of Rice and Noodle Pilaf with Artichokes, Pine Nuts, and Saffron. Piquant meze, as simple as olives marinated in lemon zest and herbs or sublime as Lobster in Tomato Mayonnaise. Fourteen great Greek salads (including a distinctly Hellenic Potato Salad with Olives, Capers, and Caraway). Moussaka variations. Grilled Quail on a Bed of Butter-Braised Cabbage. And sirenlike sweets, from world-renowned baklava to Greek spoon sweets: Rose Petal, Cherry and Grappa, Apricot and Metaxa. The Greeks have been spinning a cuisine of deeply captivating dishes for millennia. Those dishes can be found on every page of this irresistible tribute to the land of olive and caper.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly