Food writer and journalist Anastasia Miari’s yiayia (grandmother in Greek) was “not impressed” with her new cookbook, Mediterranea. “She never learned to read or write, so was like, ‘What do I do with this?’ She was just looking for her photo in it,” says Miari with a laugh. “But as soon as you walk into her house [in Corfu], she’s got my three books on the back of her sofa and my wedding photo in the middle of them all – the biggest achievement for her in life. So I know she’s proud of me.”
She’s not the only grandmother who’ll be looking for their photo in Mediterranea though, a book that preserves the recipes of grandmothers across the Mediterranean basin. These formidable, fascinating women and their food are captured by photographer Marco Argüello. Drenched in sunlight, the pages are patterned with ornate kitchen tiles, antique table cloths, hardworking two ring gas burners, alongside the beautiful wrinkles of these grandmothers who have racked up years of life experience alongside a repertoire of dishes.
Miari has been cooking with grandmothers for 10 years. Her last cookbook, yiayia, focused on Greek grandmothers, including her own. In Mediterranea she meets matriarchs from the “usual suspects” like France, Italy, Greece and Spain but “wanted to show that the Mediterranean is so much more than just pasta, olive oil and good tomatoes. It is also the Balkans, the Levant, North Africa.”
Miari was born in Corfu and moved to London aged 11. She lived in the UK until she was 28 and then returned to Greece six years ago to raise a family. “My life has changed completely. Now I’m picking fruits at the market, able to actually squeeze tomatoes and smell them and know whether they’re going to taste of something or not, instead of having things in plastic [from the supermarket],” she says, explaining that eating in the Med is about “more than just fuelling your body. It’s about communion, conviviality and sharing a passion for food.”
(Image: Marco Argüello/PA)
The recipes – from a Greek-style risotto to a Tunisian carrot dip – are largely vegetarian (“There’s no one better than grannies to teach us about zero waste, not eating too much meat and doing what you can with what you’ve got,”) and Miari hopes they’ll become staples. “No one cooks like these women,” she says. “If you’ve been making the same dish day in, day out for 70 years, you’re going to have perfected it.”
The simplicity and cost-effectiveness of this way of cooking – while still being delicious – is a blueprint Miari believes we can all benefit from. “I need and want to cook like a Mediterranean nonna because I don’t have time to look up recipes on Instagram. I want a repertoire of 15 amazing dishes my family will eat forever and I’ll always go back to, and we’re losing that in the dross of online content,” she argues.
Also, these recipes are supremely achievable. “I’m not a trained chef, I just want dinner to be easy and taste amazing, with minimum effort,” says Miari. “Some of these women raised families of 10, and then their kids had kids, and they were raising them as well. They had to learn to do things quickly and find shortcuts.”
It’s also a matter of legacy. The invaluable knowledge and “intangible heritage” contained within these recipes would be lost if Miari wasn’t wrangling scales into these grandmothers’ kitchens. “They’re always quite surprised when I show up with weighing scales and measuring jugs – the response is either, ‘No way,’ or they laugh at me,” she says wryly.
Anastasia Miari (Image: Marco Argüello/PA) For Miari, recording her yiayia’s recipes was “very special and important” for passing them down to her daughters (she’s pregnant with her second), but more far reaching than that, in a world where history has often been written by men, her goal is to “share the stories of these ordinary women, because they’re extraordinary.” So the recipes are accompanied by snippets of the nonnas’ lives, the good and the traumatic, be it tough childhoods, difficult marriages, lost children, absent parents or missed opportunities. “When you’re cooking, you have fewer inhibitions, your hands are busy, and there’s a sense of nostalgia with the food you’re cooking,” says Miari, of how these conversations happen. “The stories are always quite profound. It is moving, I’ve sat and cried with them.”
And this is the crux, beyond the food, Miari is interested in what these women can tell us about living and how “the Mediterranean lifestyle is a better template” for doing it. “Who better to show us how life is best lived than these women who have lived really long, full and happy lives?” she asks.
It’s also an opportunity to reflect on women’s rights. “Many of these women didn’t really have a choice. They had to, for financial reasons, or because of pressure from society, get married and they had no option to have a career of their own,” says Miari. “It’s important to recognise that that threat hasn’t just gone away. Look at Afghanistan, or Iran. When I spoke to the grandmothers in Turkey, they thought the future would be so much brighter for their daughters and granddaughters, but they’re seeing things move backwards.”
She says that alongside the happiness and the joy in food, “the biggest learning I have from all of these women is that life is very long. People say life is short, but your life can take so many paths. It’s important to not waste that time, but it’s also important not to sweat the small stuff.”
She hopes this collection of stories and dishes is a chance for people to “inject a little bit of Mediterranean living into their own lives. It’s not just about eating well, it’s about taking the time to just not do anything, to have a nap or to go for a swim or to go for a walk in nature,” she says, adding with a laugh: “I want everyone to live like a Mediterranean nonna – or, at least a couple of times a week!”
Carrot dip from Mediterranea by Anastasia Miari (Image: Marco Argüello/PA)
How to make omek houria – a Tunisian carrot dip
Anastasia Miari shares a recipe for carrot dip from Mediterranea contributor Houriye, and her grandson Mamou, who live in Tunisia.
Food writer Anastasia Miari has collected recipes from grandmothers across the Med for new her cookbook Mediterranea, here she shares Houriye’s recipe for omek houria.
“On my first day in Tunis, I meet Houriye with her grandson, Mamou, at their local market in La Marsa, a coastal city on the outskirts of Tunis. Together we hand-pick the ingredients for our lunchtime feast and I see Houriye and Mamou work their way through the merchants’ stalls, feeling the vegetables, sniffing at parsley and joking with the stallholders, who planted, grew and harvested the vegetables themselves,” says food writer Anastasia Miari, author of new cookbook, Mediterranea.
“As I observe them together it strikes me how important it is that they are able to connect with the food that they eat in this way. The carrots we choose for our salad aren’t packaged in plastic; they’re loose, a bit knobbly and still have their tops firmly intact. It’s one aspect of eating that many of us in the Mediterranean take for granted: our proximity to our food.
“Together we make omek houria, a carrot ‘salad’ that I would say is closer to a dip, akin to Greek melitzanosalata (aubergine ‘salad’). Punchy with fresh garlic and a healthy dollop of harissa, this is an incredibly versatile dish. Houriye, Mamou and I eat it with chunks of fresh tuna on top, but it also makes a brilliant vegan addition to a selection of meze bites or as an accompaniment to roast chicken or grilled fish. It’s bright, light and has become a summer picnic essential for me and my family.”
Ingredients:
(Serves 6)
8 carrots, peeled and chopped into 2.5cm rounds
1tsp sea salt, plus extra to taste
1tbsp harissa paste
2tbsp olive oil
2tbsp white wine vinegar
1tsp caraway seeds, pounded in a pestle and mortar
1 garlic clove, crushed
1 bunch of parsley, leaves very finely chopped
Crusty bread or pitta bread, to serve
Method:
1. Bring a saucepan of water to the boil and cook the carrots for 15 minutes, then add the salt and continue to cook on a rolling boil for a further five minutes, or until the carrots are completely soft. You can also choose to steam the carrots (retaining more of the nutrients of the vegetable), but ensure they’re soft enough to mash after steaming. Drain and allow to cool before the next step.
2. While the carrots are cooling, combine the harissa, oil, vinegar, caraway seeds and a pinch of salt in a jug (pitcher) or small bowl, stirring until they come together.
3. Once the carrots have cooled, use a pestle and mortar (as Houriye does) or blitz the carrots into a puree in a food processor, then transfer to a bowl. Combine the pureed carrot with the harissa dressing, garlic and parsley.
4. Serve with crusty bread or pitta bread.
Greek spinach risotto from Mediterranea by Anastasia Miari (Image: Marco Argüello/PA)
How to make spanakorizo – Greek rice and spinach risotto
Food writer Anastasia Miari shares a recipe from Mediterranea contributor Soula, a Greek native whose risotto dish comes with an exciting twist.
Food writer Anastasia Miari has collected recipes from grandmothers across the Med for new her cookbook Mediterranea, here she shares Soula’s recipe for risotto.
“It’s spring in Greece and wildflowers are in bloom over a lush blanket of grass when I arrive in the Peloponnese to cook with Yiayia Soula. We head past neatly preened olive groves to the local laiki (market) to grab the ingredients for our spanakorizo and I can tell right away that Soula is a force to be reckoned with. She has no issue being photographed in the village, posing for the camera as locals gawp at the sight of me and Marco the photographer, snapping away while Soula comically surveys the veggies in a performative fashion worthy of an Oscar. When people inevitably ask what we’re doing, she’s the first to explain that she’s being featured in a new cookbook,” says journalist and cookbook writer Anastasia Miari.
“Back home, we cook spanakorizo in the dappled shade of the orange trees in her garden. I find Soula’s method of washing the spinach – in an enormous vat with a hose pipe – hugely entertaining and will be trying this at home. This dish is a kind of risotto, but in true Greek style, the vegetables are the star of the show and it’s much less fussy to make than a traditional Italian risotto (who has time for all that hovering and stirring?). An entire bunch of dill added into our pot brings a fresh meadow aroma to the garden and we serve it with a hefty chunk of feta and a wedge of zesty lemon.”
Ingredients:
(Serves 4)
1kg spinach (Soula insists it is always fresh and never from frozen)
160ml olive oil, plus extra to serve
4 large spring onions (scallions), trimmed and chopped into 1cm rounds
2 large leeks, trimmed and cleaned, then chopped into 2.5cm half-moons
1 bunch of dill, roughly chopped
2 large garlic cloves, green germs removed and roughly chopped
700ml water
150g medium-grain rice, such as karolina
1/2tsp ground black pepper
1/2tbsp salt
1 chicken stock (bouillon) cube (optional – reduce the salt by half if using)
1/2 lemon, for squeezing
Feta and bread, to serve
Method:
1. Start by washing the spinach. Place it in a large bowl of water with a splash of vinegar and wash well, roughly tearing it to pieces as you do so and removing any tough stalks. The vinegar will ensure you get rid of any little friends hiding in the leaves.
2. Drain the spinach and place it in a large saucepan over a medium-high heat. Cover and allow to steam for 10 minutes. Next, add the olive oil, followed by the spring onions, leeks, dill and garlic. Cook, stirring every so often, for about five minutes.
3. Pour in the water and the rice, followed by the salt, pepper and stock cube, if using. Cover and simmer for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally to stop the rice sticking.
4. Once the rice is tender, season again to taste and add a squeeze of lemon for a final zingy flourish. Served with a slab of feta, an extra drizzle of olive oil and plenty of crusty bread.
Fresh clam pasta from Mediterranea by Anastasia Miari (Image: Marco Argüello/PA)
How to make spaghetti alle vongole
Food writer Anastasia Miari shares a recipe from Mediterranea contributor Nonna Luisa, for Neapolitan fresh clam pasta.
Food writer Anastasia Miari has collected recipes from grandmothers across the Med for new her cookbook Mediterranea, here she shares Nonna Luisa’s recipe for clam pasta.
“Nonna Luisa is a proud Napoletana. She lives at the very heart of the city on the coastal road and waxes lyrical about the tomatoes she has sourced for the spaghetti alle vongole dish she’s cooking with me today. ‘This is from Vesuvius, I don’t just use any old tomato,’ she says, frowning, when I ask her if I might use Pomodorini in place of the pointy-ended tomatoes she adds to her vongole. When we are ready to add the clams to the dish, I realise that they’re still alive in their shells,” says food writer and journalist Anastasia Miari, author of new cookbook, Mediterranea.
“One pokes its tiny little sucker out of the shell for a second before noticing us and Nonna Lusia starts jiggling it around on the plate, trying – and failing – to get it to come out again.
This is how fresh the seafood is in Naples. You buy your clams in the morning at the market and in the afternoon, they’re still alive and wistfully searching for the sea.
“Spaghetti alle vongole is my favourite of all the pasta dishes this planet has to offer. It is a great privilege to be able to make this dish using Nonna Luisa’s recipe because, despite having tried and tested many versions along the Italian coastline, this surely is the best one I’ve ever had. I adore the added pinch of peperoncino, a little spice that reflects Nonna Luisa’s passionate persona. It takes very little time to make and is an impressive one to serve up for dinner once you master it.”
Ingredients:
(Serves 4)
400g cherry tomatoes
1 heaped tbsp sea salt, plus extra to taste
350g spaghetti
60ml olive oil
4 garlic cloves, halved and germs removed
1/2 bunch of parsley, stems and leaves separated, and leaves finely chopped
2 small dried chillies
850g vongole clams, washed
Method:
1. First, make a one centimetre deep incision in the shape of a cross in the top of each tomato, then set aside.
2. Bring a large saucepan of water to the boil for the pasta. Once at a rolling boil, add the salt, then the spaghetti. Make a note of the cooking time on the packet and set a timer for two minutes before the end of the suggested cooking – it will finish cooking in the pan with the clams.
3. Meanwhile, heat the oil in a deep frying pan over a low heat and fry the garlic, parsley stems and chillies for five minutes, then remove the garlic, parsley and chilli from the pan using a slotted spoon and discard them. Add the tomatoes to the pan, increasing the heat to medium and cover. Allow the tomatoes to steam in their own juices for about four minutes, then add the clams, cover again and cook for a minute or so. Add a scant ladle of pasta cooking water to the pan and continue to cook until the clams have opened – discard any that don’t. Use a slotted spoon to remove some of the clams and set aside.
4. Drain the pasta, then quickly add it to the pan, stirring constantly until the sauce thickens. Divide between plates and add the reserved clams, plus a sprinkling of parsley leaves. Eat immediately.
Mediterranea by Anastasia Miari with photographs by Marco Argüello, published by Quadrille. (Image: Marco Argüello/PA)
Mediterranea by Anastasia Miari with photographs by Marco Argüello, is published by Quadrille, priced £28. Available July 31.
Dining and Cooking