If, like me, you read cookbooks like other people do novels, or brood over handsome color photos in them as if reading a coffee table book, then you will love Falling Cloudberries. It is a perfectly beautiful book, loaded with glorious images, not only of food, but of the author's family -- the source of her love of food and many of the dishes presented in the book -- and the places where she has lived or traveled.
The recipes themselves are generally simple variations on regional favorites from Finland, Greece, Cyprus, South Africa, Italy and a few other countries where Kiros or her family members have traveled. I tend to prefer simple recipes, not only because they are just faster and easier to create, but because I believe they give a clearer idea of the flavors of a place. (I always think that one of the best ways to understand another culture is to eat their food.) The more complex recipes tend to show what a culture eats during celebrations, and that's a lesson, too.
But one of the most interesting facets of this book is seeing these recipes virtually side-by-side which allows us to understand how the same basic ingredients can be made into so many different dishes with so many different flavors, just by virtue of the herbs and spices used, or what produce tends to dominate in a place.
Falling Cloudberries is a Gourmet bookclub selection and for good reason. It's a stunning book filled with recipes that virtually anyone can master. It gives us clearer ideas of how cuisines overlap and how they make use of local flavors to create regional cuisines. If you love cookbooks, you couldn't do much better than to add this one to your collection.
Falling Cloudberries: A World of Family Recipes
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