The Cypriot Youth of Brisbane is set to release a cookbook this May that encapsulates Greek Cypriot culinary tradition, entitled Our Cypriot Kitchen.
The Cypriot Youth of Brisbane is a sub-committee of the Cypriot Community of Queensland. Together, the committees endeavour to unite youth of the Cypriot community to ensure ties with rich culture, religion and language are maintained. Our Cypriot Kitchen is the most recent way in which the committees plan to do this.
Our Cypriot Kitchen is a skilful compilation that fuses the culinary knowledge and skills from those across the Cypriot community in Brisbane. Youth committee vice president Paras Vasiliou tells Neos Kosmos that the book required the collective effort of many to assemble recipes for translation, cooking and photography.
“The book has taken six months to assemble, with tasks including gathering cherished family recipes, translating them from Greek to English, cooking them and photographing them for the book.”
Vasiliou also tells Neos Kosmos that the process provided the committee “with a chance to look beyond the finished product and learn the secret techniques and ingredients which warmed [their] hearts and filled [their] bellies” growing up in Cypriot families.
The cookbook has 50 carefully-sourced traditional Cypriot recipes, covering all tastes and capturing the essence of Cypriot cooking, with Vasiliou says “is all about texture, flavour and colour”. Recipes range from breads and dips, pastries, mezethes, sides, meals, desserts and biscuits.
Our Cypriot Kitchen will be selling for $39.99, with proceeds from the book going towards funding better facilities for the youth committee, senior committee and for the committee’s dance group.
The book will be sold at the committee’s Paniyiri Greek festival between 23 and 24 May, and will be available for purchase online in late May at www.ourcypriotkitchen.com.au