Product Description

The cuisines of the Mediterranean are famous for taking humble ingredients and transforming them into savory masterpieces. Finding inspiration in every region of the Mediterranean basin, from the ever-popular dishes of France, Italy, and Spain to the more exotic fare of North Africa and the Middle East, Martha Rose Shulman offers innovative recipes that use less olive oil and other high-fat ingredients while retaining every drop of sun-drenched flavor.

The results: meatless yet hearty pasta sauces; refreshing salads of beans, grains, and vegetables; sizzling grilled fish dishes; aromatic chicken stews; refreshing fresh fruit desserts; virtually fat-free renditions of ratatouille and hummus; and updated, slimmed-down versions of traditional classics like paella, salade Nicoise, and lasagne. These satisfying recipes will become the cornerstone of a long-lasting commitment to healthful eating.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #637385 in Books
• Published on: 1989-07-01
• Released on: 1989-07-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 432 pages

From Publishers Weekly
These dietetic-but-not-dull recipes, culled from Shulman's friends and fellow cooks, feature Italian, Greek, Middle Eastern and Southern French cuisines. Using relatively little olive oil, few fats and lean chicken and rabbit, Shulman ( Supper Club Chez Martha Rose ) "lightens" traditional fare. She claims that these recipes are designed for slow, steady weight loss, and, without putting forward a program of exercise, promises that "you won't gain the weight back." That's a strong claim for a diet cookbook that doesn't always specify exact portions for each dish. (Any 1200- to 1500-calorie-per-day diet requires strict portion control.) Dieters may be misled. For example, Shulman suggests eating bread with meals, but portion sizes are not in every instance listed clearly above each recipe's nutrient analysis. And ample menus--one includes crostini with porcini mushrooms, pasta e fagioli, swiss chard, a small green salad, and oranges with mint, plus one slice of bread, yielding approximately 830 calories--could lead easily to overindulgence.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Shulman's latest is sort of a low-calorie version of Paula Wolfert's books on Mediterranean cuisine. Author of The Vegetarian Feast and several other cookbooks, she has taken her favorite recipes from all the Mediterranean countries, cut down on oils and fats, changed cooking methods when necessary, and come up with lighter, healthier, authentic-tasting dishes. Nutrition information is included for each, but the audience for this book should not be limited to dieters. For both regional and special collections.-- JS
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

-- Colman Andrews, Editor, Saveur
"Martha Rose Shulman thinks her dishes through, tells charming stories about their provenance, and offers a wealth of practical advice."

Customer Reviews

Too light for today
Many of the recipes in this cookbook are okay, but when I ordered it I failed to notice that it contains a "Forward by Dean Ornish, M.D." That would have been the tip-off.

We all know that too much fat is bad for us, and like many Americans my husband and I eat "light" nowadays--nonfat dairy products; very little beef, lamb or pork; no butter or margerine; skinless chicken and turkey. But much has changed in the dietary world since Shulman's book was first published in 1989. We now know that there are "good" fats as well as bad ones, and that an EXTREMELY low fat diet can be almost as unhealthy as a high-fat one.

If you are vegetarian, this book will probably be useful to you. However, it contains only nine recipes that contain chicken (note that most are not truly "chicken dishes"). Few recipes contain cheese or dairy products of any kind, and most disturbing is her insistance on reducing the olive oil content of most dishes to a miniscule amount. She even includes a recipe for a traditional provencal onion pissaladiere (pizza) which always includes olives: she writes she "left out the olives . . .for the diet version"!

There are many, many excellent mediterranean cookbooks on the market without going to the extreme of Shulman's. Dr. Atkins and Dr. Ornish are at the opposite extremes of the twenty-year- long fat versus carb controversy. Try an alternative mediterranean cookbook and find yourself a satisfying middle ground. I suggest The Mediterranean Diet Cookbook or any of Paula Wolfert's cookbooks. Another, unfortunately out of print, is Mediterranean Cooking the Healthful Way by Marilyn Spieler--my personal favorite. Go ahead: drizzle, don't dump, olive oil on your food and pop a couple of kalamata olives in your mouth. It's okay!

Five stars!
I have lots of cookbooks but few are as reliable as this one by Ms. Shulman. The lower-fat hummus recipe alone is worth the price of the book. (Another favorite is the Swiss chard soup.) This book was obviously a labor of love for the author. Thanks!

no use as is
I bought this book thinking I would be getting good vegetarian mediterranean food, and found that I had to modify every recipe I have used from it to suit my taste. The modifications included adding a little bit of olive oil here and there to make the food taste better - I find that for example lentils boiled with some onion and garlic taste pretty plain, even after adding the spices suggested. Another thing I dislike about this book is that the author uses A LOT of garlic in her dishes to make up for lack of flavor, and also that she substitutes yogurt for olive oil in quite a few dishes - what a useless idea for those of us who don't even like yogurt. Finally the organization could be better. In summary there are some interesting ideas in her book but there are much better Mediterranean/healthy/vegetarian cookbooks on the market.