the UK Restaurant and Hotel Zine

Clifford Mould gets his nose into some interesting recipes

Food from the Village is about creative reinterpretations of the robust, earthy cooking of Cyprus. The recipes are from the repertoire of Polycarpus Demetriou, the executive head chef of the The Annabelle Hotel in Paphos. The well known cookery writer and broadcaster Thane Prince tasted, selected and translated them, and The Senate (of River Café Cook Book fame) designed the book, illustrated by the romantic foodie photography of Henri del Olmo. The result is bold, colourful and intreaguing.

The book is laid out alphabetically, so you begin with barbecues (invented in Cyprus in about 3000BC so the locals claim) and move on to bread, desserts, fish, game and so on. My only carp is that there are a number of essentially Cypriot culinary styles that have techniques and base ingredients that can be applied to a variety of different principal ingredients. It would have been nice therefore, to have a bit of a discussion about what really goes into a good traditional stifado, for instance, rather than separate recipes for rabbit and beef stifado pages apart. I wanted to ask, what was the rationale behind the rabbit stiffado having twice the wine, nearly half the onions and none of the peppercorns? I don't doubt that it works a treat, but why?

There are many good pasta recipes and I wanted to ask, do the Cypriots in the Village make pasta with a machine (as suggested in the book), or do they buy imported stuff from Italy? How much a part of indigenous Cypriot cooking is pasta and how recent an import?

Many of the recipes are based on simple culinary techniques as befits a rustic style of cooking. Where things get a little more complicated, such as spanakopita where filo pastry is involved, some idea of what you are aiming for would have been useful. That's when you wish that the photos that attracted you whilst browsing in the bookshop were actually more practical!

The book mixes tradition with innovation: the recipe for shieftalia (sic) we are told "makes 30 minced lamb kebabs", but intreaguingly the recipe calls for a kilo of minced pork. There are some terrific fish recipes - more than one way to stuff a cuttlefish. And once you've made the proper taramosalata, you'll never want to dip your pitta into the supermarket (or sadly, expat-Cypriot Meze) gunge again.

My favourite recipe of all is in the game section where partridge is served with the yummiest possible caramelised figs. The recipe says you could substitue quail, but I think pigeon would be the perfect gamey partner as it would be hard to find both partridge and fresh figs in season at the same time.

This is certainly a book to lure you into the kitchen, though even more it made me want to jump on the next flight to Cyprus and beat a path to Annabelle's dining room!

Food from the Village Thanos Press Cyprus. Available in the UK price £ from Thanos Hotels (UK) Sales Office, PO Box 3276, London N12 7QE. Tel: 020 8343 4244

The Annabelle Hotel, Pafos, Cyprus, PO Box 401 CY8102. Tel (357) (6) 238333

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Views or opinions expressed by authors are not necessarily those of the publishers, Clifton Media Associates. While every care is taken in compiling this publication, the publishers cannot assume responsibility for any effects arising therefrom.