Martha Rose Shulman - Mediterranean Harvest: Vegetarian Recipes from the World’s Healthiest Cuisine

M EDITERRANEAN
H ARVEST

Martha Rose Shulmans cuisine has always been blessed by the sun, fired by her own personal energy, colored by the rainbow-hued produce of the Mediterranean. Marthas experience, expertise, and professionalism shine through loud and clear in this marvelous book!

Patricia Wells, author of Vegetable Harvest

Mediterranean Harvest is Martha Rose Shulmans most delectable harvest of recipes yet! This is a treasure trove for all good eaters.

Deborah Madison, author of Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone and Local Flavors

I love Martha Rose Shulmans food. It is always comforting and full of love. She brings us on a culinary journey, sharing wonderful recipes that jump from the pages with tips that seem endless. Pleasure pours from the pages with the perfect juxtaposition of exotic and comfort food. Travel with Martha on an unhurried journey of flavor and adventure. Just as Mediterranean food must be savored, Marthas recipes make you want to create and savor every bite.

Sherry Yard, Executive Pastry Chef, Spago

Theres nobodys table Id rather eat at than Martha Rose Shulmans. Her food is always delicious and direct to the point, the way home cooking is supposed to begood cooking not as an ostentatious display, but as a natural and necessary component of good living. Mediterranean Harvest captures that spirit perfectly. If you want endlessly complicated dishes you will slave over for a whole weekend, look elsewhere. If you just want to feed your friends and family good food you know theyll enjoy, this is the book for you.

Russ Parsons, Los Angeles Times food columnist and author of How to Pick a Peach

Mediterranean Harvest proves that eating vegetables can be the greatest of pleasures. The recipes are fabulous and easy to follow. Even better, they are Mediterranean, which means they could not be more delicious. I cant think of a healthier or happier way of eating.

Marion Nestle, professor of nutrition, food studies, and public health at New York University and author of What to Eat

What I love about Martha Shulmans newest creation is... everything. Her vast experience and knowledge, her voice, the luscious breadth of flavor and textures in the recipes, all of which are calculated to get the cookwhether experienced or noviceinto the kitchen. This book is a must in anyones collection.

Susan Herrmann Loomis, author of Cooking at Home on Rue Tatin

M EDITERRANEAN
H ARVEST

V EGETARIAN R ECIPES
FROM THE W ORLD'S
H EALTHIEST C UISINE

M ARTHA R OSE S HULMAN

Mention of specific companies, organizations, or authorities in this book does not imply endorsement by the author or publisher, nor does mention of specific companies, organizations, or authorities imply that they endorse this book, its author or the publisher.

Internet addresses and telephone numbers given in this book were accurate at the time it went to press.

2007 by Martha Rose Shulman

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any other information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher.

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Printed in the United States of America Rodale Inc. makes every effort to use acid-free , recycled paper .

The recipes for Lentil Salad, Harissa, and Homemade Ricotta Cheese originally appeared in Little Foods of the Mediterranean, by Clifford A. Wright, published by The Harvard Common Press (2003). They are reprinted with permission of the author and publisher.

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Book design by Carol Angstadt

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Shulman, Martha Rose.

Mediterranean harvest : vegetarian recipes from the worlds healthiest cuisine / Martha Rose Shulman.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN-13 978-1-59486-234-2 hardcover

ISBN-13 978-1-60529-428-5 paperback

1. Vegetarian cookery. 2. Cookery, Mediterranean. I. Title.

TX837.S322 2007

641.5636dc22

2007031561

Distributed to the book trade by Macmillan

4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 hardcover

2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1 paperback

We inspire and enable people to improve their lives and the world around them
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To Liam Max Shulman Grantham,
world traveler, fearless eater,
cool dude, wonderful boy

CONTENTS

PREFACE

THE CUISINES OF THE MEDITERRANEAN CAPTURED MY TASTE BUDS long ago, certainly long before I knew I was going to have a career as a cook and cookbook author. I can trace it back to a poetic moment. I was fifteen years old, picnicking on a canal somewhere in the South of France with a bunch of privileged teenagers and a couple of French counselors, on a high school kids' European tour. I held in my hand the largest peach I'd ever seen. I took a big bite. The sensations went on and on: juice, sweetness, perfume, a flavor deeper than any peach flavor I'd ever known. The color was a dark, expressive yellow with tinges of pink. The aroma continued long after I'd swallowed.

I'm not as cavalier about discussing my age as I used to be. So let us just say that more than a few decades have gone by since that moment. Yet the memory doesn't fade. I can recall every bite of the peach, right down to the pit. I have only one other food memory from that trip, which took my brother Peter and me all over Europe, from Switzerland to Germany and Austria, to Paris and Spain, and to Italy. It was a plate of pasta. We'd just arrived in Venice and gone to lunch at a small trattoria. It was spaghetti, or maybe tagliatelle, with a smooth tomato sauce, nothing more. What I remember about that pasta is that there wasn't too much of it (it was a novelty to me that pasta was just the first course of a meal, followed by fish, salad, and cheese); that the sauce was a pure, concentrated expression of ripe tomatoes; and that the pasta wasn't swimming in it. You could see the noodles through the sauce, and when I finished eating them no sauce remained on the plate.

Eight years passed between that moment on the canal and a moment when, at the age of 23, I had an epiphany and decided I would make cooking my work. During those years I finished high school, went to college, dropped out of college and worked with Mexican American migrant farmworkers in south Texas, moved to Austin, Texas, and again enrolled in school. I had learned to cook along the way and loved doing it, but back in those days you didn't go to culinary school just because you loved to cook. You just cooked.