Ela! Ela! (Ella Mittas, Murdoch)

Ela! Ela! means ‘Come! Come!’, and it’s a wonderfully fitting title for this generous, delicious and personal book of Turkish-Greek recipes, photography and essays, which documents Ella Mittas’s travels to Istanbul, Alaçatı, Crete, and back home to Melbourne. The food writing is refreshingly honest. Mittas’s musings on working as a young person in foreign lands—the hard-won lessons, the isolation, the language barriers—are as imbued with loneliness, frustration and drudgery as they are with the sense of romance, abundance and connection that beautiful food can bring. And there is plenty of beautiful food: simple, seasonal and delicious; dishes unfussy in their preparation, with improvisation and seasonal substitutes encouraged; practical tips and simple pairings noted; memories candid on the page. Mittas’s mücver recipe reminds us to properly hand-squeeze the zucchini for a crispier fritter, while the village salad pages share a tale about her great-grandmother, who lived until the age of 106. Film photos of Mittas and her friends and family feel like they were taken by a guest at the dinner table: golden, splashy, impossible light blurs the edges of the landscape, evoking time passed, while fresh and colourful dishes jump off the page. It’s spiriting stuff that makes you want to cook for those you love.

Books+Publishing reviewer: Mel Fulton is a writer, editor, and host of Literati Glitterati on Triple R. Books+Publishing is Australia’s number-one source of pre-publication book reviews.

Category: Friday Unlocked reviews Reviews