The Mediterranean Pantry: Creating and Using Condiments and Seasonings

In The Mediterranean Pantry, Aglaia Kremezi presents 70 recipes for condiments and seasoning mixtures from France, Italy, Spain, the Eastern Mediterranean, and North Africa. The chapters correspond to how these provisions are preserved--in bottles, boxes, and jars. The text is accompanied by 20 color photographs that demonstrate how to turn these items into elegant gifts.

The Mediterranean Pantry includes recipes for unusual and familiar condiments--preserves, flavored oils and vinegars, liqueurs, and spices using these products. Preserve colorful red, yellow, and green bell peppers in olive oil during the height of the season, and serve a tasty pasta sauce months later that you can make in minutes chopping the peppers and mixing with roasted garlic and olive oil. Or make a tart green tomato and mint relish before the first frost and enjoy it with roast lamb on a cold winter night. The Mediterranean Pantry will help you infuse sunny Mediterranean flavors into meals all years long.

This delicious collection includes recipes for Preserved Lemons, Green Olives with Harissa and Orange, Green Fig Preserves, Fried Artichoke with Garlic in Olive Oil, Olive Oil with Truffles, and many other items with which to stock your pantry shelves. Many recipes are as simple as mixing several ingredients, with little or no cooking. In addition, a detailed list of mail-order sources ensures that even the most exotic ingredients will be available to all.

Aglaia Kremezi, an internationally known expert on Greek cuisine, is the author of The Foods of Greece (1993), which won the Julia Child Award for the best first cookbook from the International Association of Culinary Professionals. She works as a journalist and photographer and is the food columnist for the Sunday Athens Free Press (Kyriakatiki Eleftherotypia). She is a journalist and photographer and has lectured around the world about Greek and Mediterranean food. This is her third book.

Martin Brigdale is a well-known British photographer specializing in food. He has photographed many cookbooks in England and the Untied States, including Foods of Greece, The Mediterranean Pantry, Michel Roux Desserts, and French Country Cooking. He is an enthusiastic home cook and loves to travel.