Copy & paste from a previously written review:
Review title: "Cuisine from the Crossroads of the World"
Winner of the IACP Book of the Year for 1999, Professor Darra Goldstein's "The Georgian Feast" offers English speaking Westerners an interesting and well researched peek at the cuisine of the Georgia. Not the State of Georgia in the Southeastern United States, mind you, but rather THE GEORGIA, as in the (formerly Soviet) Republic of Georgia, which spans the lands between the Black and Caspian seas, north of Turkey, and South of Russia. The veritable crossroads of the ancient world, through which much of the trade between Europe, Greece, Rome, Russia, India, the Mid East, and China flowed.
LIKES:
* INTRODUCTION: For me, the single biggest joy of this book is the in-depth introduction to Georgian history, geography, and culture ... something I wish more authors would attempt, but which all too often is limited to only the most capable, motivated, and historically erudite authors, few of whom bother to turn their attentions to the culinary genre. In this case, we are blessed with a Russian Professor who labored to assemble an engrossing overview of Georgian feast cuisine. The 25 page introduction and 57 page cultural excursion chapters are gems, and are worth the cover price of the book, all by themselves.
* HEAD NOTES: Many of the recipes in part 2 also include indepth and informative head notes on the ethnic origin and cultural contexts of a given recipe, sometimes replete with cultural vignettes and famous quotes. Again, something I wish more authors would include. To me, a recipe is a participatory story in which you commune with those who created and enjoyed the recipe before you ... and those who will go on making the recipe after you are gone.
* ETHNIC BREADTH: The author covers a wide smattering of the styles present in the cuisine ... grilled fare, pilafs, stews, salads, pickles, soups, desserts, and goes to considerable effort to identify the ethnic and geographical origins behind selections from each. She also spends a little time covering things like `feast' etiquette, and hospitality, that many Westerners will find interesting.
MINOR NITS:
* UNPOLISHED RECIPES: The author does an excellent job relating historical and cultural tidbits, but her recipe documentation skills are a bit uneven and unpolished ... walking a meandering line between antique/rustic, and (in a few places) modern. Personally, I don't mind unpolished free-form historical recipes that omit helpful things like the optimum size/shape of vegetable dice (and meat fabrication), size/type of pan, suggested cooking times, optimal sequencing of steps, comforting photos, and tips on making ahead or leftovers management. However, those who DO feel a strong need for such things may be disappointed by their absence.
* MINOR NON-AUTHENTIC SLIPS: The author does a fine job in most of the book giving slightly modernized adaptation of authentic recipes. However, in several instances, some recipes are over modernized, to their detriment. For example, the recipe for "Cold Jellied Pork" on p.96, the authoress indicates the use of pigs feet and a little pork shoulder, but in deference to modern sensibilities, calls for the feet to be discarded after simmering (prior to straining and reducing the stock to a jelly into which the meat is set). I'm pretty certain, sight unseen, that period recipes would likely have called for the feet to be simply deboned and coarsely chopped along with the shoulder, rather than discarded ... such waste is only common to modern cuisine.
* MINOR ERRORS: Minor errors abound - such as the yeast bread on p.138 that appears to call for too much yeast.
* IMPRECISE TERMINOLOGY: In addition to the frequent lack of things like dice size, the author sometimes uses terms in a somewhat vague fashion ... such as "Salt" (is it fine table salt, medium salt, or coarse salt ?), yeast (baker's ? instant rise ?) or "Dried Fenugreek", the latter of which the reader must hunt around to confirm that it refers to dried ground leaves, not dried ground seeds. The helpful introductory chapter on ingredients covers some (but not all) of these, but the editor could and should have clarified the recipes on such points.
All in all, I was very happy with this book, and I'm looking forward to exploring some flavors and techniques that are a bit new to me (walnut sauces, pomegranate juice, etc.).
Despite the lack of polish in the recipe section, I highly recommend this book for the culinarily inquisitive who like to cook exploratively, without the comforting training wheels of precise measures and photos.
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