The Food and Wine of Greece

"I was trying to think of the first Greek cookbook I used at home and nothing comes to mind. But when I started researching Prospero’s Kitchen I turned to Diane’s book as a kind of authority because it covers so much of Greek cooking – all the basics, but many more unusual dishes, too. She has a wonderful way of bringing in recipes from all the different regions of the mainland, the islands, Anatolia, and showing the unexpected variety of Greek cuisine in the context of history and tradition. Her book’s drawings also helped me with unfamiliar techniques, like, say, pie making, for I didn’t know much about working with filo pastry at the time. For example, she says that the pita, which is the Greek word for pie, is to Greek cooking what pasta is to Italian. Pies in all shapes, sizes and fillings account for a big section of Greek cooking. She’s also very comprehensive on sweets – how do you like the sound of chocolate baklava? Support Five Books Five Books interviews are expensive to produce. If you're enjoying this interview, please support us by donating a small amount . Diane is a Greek-American – she grew up in New York. Her father was a cook and she came to Greece to find her roots. She started writing about Greek food and she really got into it. She travelled all over the countryside in search of genuine tastes and people, and one thing that comes across in all her books is the welcome, the hospitality she encounters everywhere – which is such an important part of life here. By talking about the people she meets, she brings you into the Greek countryside and such simple pleasures as eating a fish soup cooked by the fisherman himself. And as June and I both know, once you start looking for recipes, most people are only too happy to talk. One of my favourites, though untried, is “Quail-stuffed eggplant – klephtic style”. Klephts were bands of outlaws during the Greek Revolution of 1821 who had to cook on the run without fires and tempting smells. They improvised underground ovens and the name applies to all sorts of sealed, clay-pot cookery. I’ve never attempted this because I’ve never had quail and eggplant at the same time, but it sounds quite wonderful."