Your grandmothers and your great-grandmothers gave up their names to their husbands, went inside their houses, and were never heard from again. If you wanted to trace the story of their lives and find yourself in them, you could not look in books or history. You would have to start with secret clues. You would have to start with imam.

Throughout the Levant, on any given day, the aroma of imam rises, a scent of onion and oil, garlic and tomato. There are as many versions of the recipe as there are bays and mountains. In the geologic twists and passages of northern Greece, villages that never make it onto postcards hide in valleys far from the sea...

Using her imagination and the stories passed through her bones as ingredients, Catherine Temma Davidson blends memories, Greek myths, recipes, and family gossip to uncover a hidden history--the story of one woman's year in Greece as it crosses and doubles back over the lives of her mother and grandmother.

At some point in our lives, all women sail with Athena. With her, we look at the islands ruled by women and puU our ships away from the landfall. From a distance, we sniff the air, heavy with flowers. We turn to the salt spray and think we are more brave.

When we reach our destination, it is easier to imagine no other women have been there before. We will be safe from the mistakes of our predecessors, we think, as long as we pretend that the footprints we see in the sand are ours alone.

Layered with love affairs, long car rides, poignant misunderstandings, moments of wonder and fierce longing, The Priest Fainted is nothing less than the recipe of a young Greek-American woman's life.