The Priest Fainted - Catherine Temma Davidson

Every women needs a story. But a young woman cannot find her story amongst the dusty ruins of the past or the stereotyped heroines of myth. She has to start with secret clues. She must drink the wines of the lands whose roots go deeper than nations and borders; she must learn to capture the air-borne electricity that makes Thessalian peaches twice as round and sweet as others. She will find that curing bitterness is possible, although the salt will make her fingers swell and her joints ache. And she will sample the Greek dish that made the priest faint. To find her story, a woman must take the raw ingredients of history, blend them with experience and season them with knowledge.

The Priest Fainted is the succulent recipe of one woman's life. Her odyssey through the birthplace of myth bears the imprint of her mother's journey thirty years before. In a country 'born on dead rocks' she discovers her own readings of the stories of Aphrodite and Psyche, Athena, daughter of Zeus, Demeter and Persephone. And she comes to realise that most family resemblances are more than skin deep.