Book of Middle Eastern Food Cookbook

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Description: The more than 500 recipes that Claudia Roden has brought together, many of them set down for the first time, have been gathered from family notebooks and old manuscripts, from the mud-lint cookstoves and palace kitchens, from the street vendors' braziers and luxury restaurants of Persia, Egypt, Israel, Greece, Turkey, Arabia, Morocco, Tunisia, and other parts of the Middle East. Ranging from earthy peasant fare, some of it unchanged since the days of the pharaohs, to regal dishes of the Persian empire, from flamboyant creations of the Mediterranean to the traditional Sephardic specialties that Mrs. Roden herself grew up on, the recipes offer a glorious assortment of tastes and textures that will open up a new world of flavors to the American cook. 

Inspired by her own nostalgia for the foods of her childhood, Mrs. Roden, an exile from Egypt now living in London, spent fifteen years collecting recipes that she loved -- testing, sampling, perfecting, and translating into workable Western terms the wonderfully subtle, spicy, colorful cookery of the Middle East. From the more familiar spitted meats and succulent stuffed vegetables to wickedly rich pastries, she has unearthed dishes known to have made an imam faint with pleasure. Her myriads of rnezze -- the miniature foods that people in most Middle Eastern countries nibble away at throughout the day (little deep-fried rissoles, crushed nuts and spices rolled and roasted, and small savory pastries) -- arc merely an appetite-whetting prelude to such gala concoctions as Moroccan shad stuffed with dates, or a platter of charcoal-grilled pigeons sprinkled with lemon and fresh herbs, or a splendid Persian dish of lamb blended with the sweet acidity of apricots. 

Despite the exotic sound of these dishes, they are easy to prepare, demanding no special culinary skills other than the bit of patience required to stuff and roll in leisurely fashion a few dozen vine leaves. And in many instances the electric blender will do in seconds what might have taken hours with mortar and pestle. Most of the ingredients are readily available, while the more exotic herbs and spices can be obtained through importing companies (a comprehensive list is included at the back of this book). 

At a time when food costs are soaring, here is a cuisine that is particularly appealing because it offers new and delicious ways of using less-expensive cuts of meats and nutritious grains and legumes. Moreover, all is made doubly alluring through Mrs. Roden's knowledge and enthusiasm. Her tales of how a dish evolved, when and how it might be served, the way a poet sang its praises, or with what relish she remembers eating it as a child make this a richly rewarding book to savor as well as to cook from.  

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Condition: Good condition. Front cover has light bend.