By Manos Angelakis
 

This compendium of appetizer recipes contains everything one might want to know about the small dishes, dips, spreads and shooters that American cooks have adopted from cuisines around the world.

Appetizers - and their modern restaurant counterpart, the tasting menu - have become as ubiquitous as meze or tapas or antipasti have been in the  countries bordering the Mediterranean. Actually, most of the recipes in the book have their origins in Asian dim sum, Mediterranean meze and Middle Eastern caravanserai fare.

Small bites have always been associated with the idea of hospitality. You will not be welcomed in a Greek or Turkish or Lebanese home, without been offered a small something to eat and drink, whether it is a spoon-sweet, a miniature pastry or a small piece of spanakopita with a cup of coffee, or to accompany ouzo or raki, a piece of cheese, a slice of sausage and tomato and cucumber slices.  In Crete you will also find in your meze plate, snails and pickles, while in the Middle-East you might be offered, in addition to some of the above, pieces of flatbread with a hummus spread on top or a couple spicy meatballs in tomato sauce.

The book has 16 chapters built around specific types of dishes and covers all kinds of dietary requirements. The recipe variety is exceptional and I would not dream of inviting people to my home, without trying a few of the more unusual tidbits.

© December 2011 LuxuryWeb Magazine. All rights reserved.