annieb123
Written on Dec 12, 2020
1000 Mediterranean Meals is a well written attractive cookbook with recipes developed and curated by Valentina Harris. Due out 15th Dec 2020 from Quarto on their Chartwell Books imprint, it's 256 pages and will be available in hardcover format.
I liked the writing style and presentation of this book. The format is logical and easy to follow. I can imagine that the author is a gifted teacher in her cooking classes.
Although covering a large number of cuisines from several Mediterranean areas, the recipes are arranged by category: antipasti meze & tapas, soups & salads, breads & pizzas, vegetables & vegetarian, pasta & rice, meat & poultry, fish & seafood, and desserts & fruit.
Ingredient measurements are supplied in American standard measurements with some metric measures included (yay!). The nutritional information is not included. Each recipe includes a header with a short description of the recipe and approximate servings. Extra tips or recipe alternatives are listed in text boxes in the recipes. The recipes themselves are fairly straightforward and are made for the most part with easily sourced ingredients. Many are very simple, none of them are overly complex. The photography is abundant and clear; most of the recipes are illustrated simply and clearly. Pictures accompany the recipes set into a sidebar.
This is a large collection of recipes and even allowing for the fact that some of them are very similar to others in the same category, this will keep Mediterranean cooking fans going for ages. There are many simple "everyday" recipes which are anything but boring alongside fancier "special" dinner recipes. We tried several dishes and all of them were tasty and well written. (We didn't try any of the bread or dessert recipes, but I found no glaring errors with a quick read-through).
We're definitely going to try more of these recipes. Well written book, tasty recipes.
Five stars. This is a massive recipe book which will be used. It would make a superlative housewarming gift to a friend or family member living on their own - college student, new graduate, newlyweds, kids flying the nest, etc or a friend trying to eat more health consciously with better quality ingredients as well as a nice acquisition for the home library.
Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.