Prospero's Kitchen Mediterranean Cookbook

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Description: The seven emerald baubles on the wine-dark seas between Greece and Italy known as the Ionians are rich and magical. Aphrodite was born in the sea foam off Kythera, six of the islands constituted Odysseus' kingdom, and Shakespeare is thought to have chosen Corfu as the island on which Prospero was marooned and where The Tempest played out. 

The Ionians are a world where the music and dancing never quite stop. Celebrations are so frequent that the natives require short fasts between festivals in order to recover. Fresh fish, produce, and olive-fed turkey are abundant, and island cooking is as sensual as life itself. 

Rooted in exotic Byzantium, Ionian fare is influenced by the best the Romans, French, British, Venetians, Turks, and Arabs had to offer. All agreed during their various occupation of the islands that "there never was a people with such capacity for enjoyment." 

The recipes in Prospero's Kitchen come from tattered old notebooks. Most are family recipes that have been handed down from mother to daughter with love and care. All reflect the cosmopolitan nature of Ionian cuisine. There are recipes for Easter breads, spice breads, vegetable pies, bean soups, plus roast chicken with lemon, potatoes, and whole garlic cloves; fish baked in olive oil with tomato slices, garlic, and parsley; rounded off with coffee, pastries, sesame and honey candy, and preserves. 

Most of the thousands of visitors to the Ionian Islands hardly ever get a chance to taste real Ionian cooking -- this cookbook reveals what they have been missing. If, as Lawrence Durrell and his coterie liked to imagine, Corfu really was the sorceror's island, these are the dishes his spirits would have conjured. 

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Condition: Good condition.