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1st out of 156 books
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54 voters
The New Book of Middle Eastern Food
In this updated and greatly enlarged edition of her Book of Middle Eastern Food, Claudia Roden re-creates a classic. The book was originally published here in 1972 and was hailed by James Beard as "a landmark in the field of cookery"; this new version represents the accumulation of the author's thirty years of further extensive travel throughout the ever-changing landscape...more
Hardcover, 528 pages
Published
September 26th 2000
by Knopf
(first published February 12th 1974)
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Note: This review will cover four books. The review will be the same in each of those books’ review sections.
I was recently at a Mediterranean/Arabic restaurant that was bursting with flavourful foods. We’re not talking your usual fast food Mediterranean food. We talking herbs, spices, fresh and hot flat breads (pouffed from cooking). I realized that even though I have been using herbs and spices in my cooking, raising a lot of my own fresh herbs, I could be doing a whole lot more.
So I searche...more
I was recently at a Mediterranean/Arabic restaurant that was bursting with flavourful foods. We’re not talking your usual fast food Mediterranean food. We talking herbs, spices, fresh and hot flat breads (pouffed from cooking). I realized that even though I have been using herbs and spices in my cooking, raising a lot of my own fresh herbs, I could be doing a whole lot more.
So I searche...more
This book has the same problems as many 'comprehensive' cookbooks--there is simply too much. I don't need eighteen different dips in the first chapter. In fact, I'd be lucky to try three. I need more photos and less dense text. I need more specific directions--what does a slice of feta cheese look like? If I decided it was what they sell in the average Canadian deli section of a grocery store, I'm pretty sure the recipe as it was written would be awful. Overall, while I appreciate that Claudia R...more
So far so good! I started reading this with sticky notes next to me to mark recipes I wanted to try. It soon became apparent that sticky notes were not needed - everything sounded fantastic (but the brains - not for me). Tonight, I made the Ferakh bel Tamatem (Sauteed Chicken Breasts with Tomatoes) and Ful Ahdar bel Roz wal Laban Zabadi (Fresh green fava beans with rice and yogurt), though I used green peas instead of fava beans. Wow. Awesome dinner that even my 3-year-old liked. And my picky 5-...more
I love Middle Eastern food, and I love this book! While this book is not for beginners, those more experienced in the kitchen will love trying new and exotic flavors and cooking techniques. I made a fantastic feast of kebabs, baba ghanouj (roasted the egglpants under the brioler myself), hummus, tabouli, and HOMEMADE PITA BREAD (took a few days, no joke). But that's just the beginning...the book is full of so many delicious recipes that most AMericans have never heard or conceived of, regardless...more
One of my favorites for Middle Eastern food. Two other favorites are A Taste of Persia by Najmieh K. Batmanglij and The Arab Table by May S. Bsiu.
I am not good cook, but I love to read cookbooks. These three books are very accessible. I can enjoy reading them, and I can actually make a dish from one of their recipies from time to time withiut having to learn a complicated new skill, purchase some new expensive cooking gadget, or spending days on the internet or a phone trying to find ingredients...more
I am not good cook, but I love to read cookbooks. These three books are very accessible. I can enjoy reading them, and I can actually make a dish from one of their recipies from time to time withiut having to learn a complicated new skill, purchase some new expensive cooking gadget, or spending days on the internet or a phone trying to find ingredients...more
i liked the book because it has some recipes from different middle eastern countries. however i found some of the recipes not exactly the way they suppose to be according to what i know and the igredients i am used to. i know there are the same name for a recipe but with different methods and ingredients for this reason the name of the book should mention something that gives the reader the impretion that the recipes are with a twist. overall it is informative because i got to know some other re...more
This book has been an invaluable resource in the midst of the current Middle Eastern food kick in which I find myself. It covers all the basics and is wide enough in scope to include foods from Turkey to Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the Levant. So far I have been pleased with the results of everything I've tried, though I've really just started to scratch the surface.
I've made two tasty salads, one with couscous tomatoes and cucumber and the other, called Kefir, with tomatoes and bulgar. Kefir is Tu...more
I've made two tasty salads, one with couscous tomatoes and cucumber and the other, called Kefir, with tomatoes and bulgar. Kefir is Tu...more
This is an amazing book, a wide ranging cookbook, with lots of social-historical context, snippets from literature and charming personal anedoctes. I am sure I will pick this up many times.
The recipe writing style is also precisely to my taste. The range is amazing and inspiring.
I have only two small personal quibbles with this : first, my edition (this precise cover) has american units. I hate american units and always prefer to avoid them. second, the photos instead of being spread out through...more
The recipe writing style is also precisely to my taste. The range is amazing and inspiring.
I have only two small personal quibbles with this : first, my edition (this precise cover) has american units. I hate american units and always prefer to avoid them. second, the photos instead of being spread out through...more
I haven't had time to cook much out of this yet (the green beans with tomato sauce are great, although I reduced the oil), but reading it sure makes me hungry.
There is a lot of text apart from the recipes, which some people might find intimidating, but since I'm also a history buff I appreciate having it there to put things in context. If I'm going to read cookbooks, anyway, I might as well learn something extra about the food, right?
I'm looking forward to trying the recipes for ful medames, alt...more
There is a lot of text apart from the recipes, which some people might find intimidating, but since I'm also a history buff I appreciate having it there to put things in context. If I'm going to read cookbooks, anyway, I might as well learn something extra about the food, right?
I'm looking forward to trying the recipes for ful medames, alt...more
This is very comprehensive, and in my experience, the recipes are fairly traditional. (My husband's family is Persian, and they haven't reacted to anything by asking "they said to put WHAT in that dish?" as they have with other cookbooks. I wish it had more photos so that I knew what the end result is supposed to look like, but it does a good job explaining Middle Eastern cooking and adapting it for American kitchens.
Packed with recipes. Hidden gems of photographs. I prefer Arabesque: A Taste of Morocco, Turkey, and Lebanon to this book mostly because of the photography and history. However, I would come back to this book in a second if I needed/wanted excellent Middle Eastern recipes.
I was expecting to find more vegetarian recipes. Instead, I found many meat-centered recipes. Roasting an entire chicken for myself and maybe my boyfriend? That's not happening any time soon. This is a cookbook that I'll probably want when I have more mouths to feed, but for right now in my young life, this is not for me.
I like it for connecting the recipes to Middle Eastern culture, and for an ethnic cookbook, it is very good. I loved my lentils in tomato sauce!
I like it for connecting the recipes to Middle Eastern culture, and for an ethnic cookbook, it is very good. I loved my lentils in tomato sauce!
My favorite ethnic cookbook, hands down. I actually have the old edition (sans the pictures), but this edition (pictured here) is the only one commercially available. Apparently, in the new edition the author has lowered the fat content in the recipes. This seems unnecessary to me since the cuisine places a strong emphasis on vegetables and grains, and most of the fat in recipes comes from olive oil. If it's healthy, why not indulge a bit, eh?
I really like Roden's style. She lived throughout th...more
I really like Roden's style. She lived throughout th...more
Excellent book on preparation of just about everything you would imagine, or hope, to find in Medit.. cooking. I'm on a second copy (replacing an old Friends of the Library freebie)- I like the chicken, fish & eggplant dishes most. I am glad I happened across this, since they're for the most part simple & yet complexly flavored. "Arabesque" features lots of the same dishes only illustrated w/ color pics and a step up on the "collector" level.
I read the reviews. I bought the book in its Kindle version. I found it has no photos. For me a recipe book without photos is pointless - food needs to be a delight to the eyes before it is a delight to the palate. The recipes maybe excellent but I am disappointed.
Delicious recipes! Roden does a great job of noting regional variations as well, which is fantastic (ie. use fava beans for falafels from Lebanon but chickpeas for those from Israel). Instead of making a completely different recipe she just notes the possible ingredient swaps or additions at the end of each recipe making it really easy to navigate! My only complaint were that there were so few pictures- I'm very visual when flipping through my cookbooks :)
I love Mediterranean food and this is a great book of traditional recipes sprinkled with background stories of the foods. My favorite cookbook...I check it out from the library again and again.
I read an older edition from a local used book store, not this edition.
A great look into the foods of Israel, complete with interesting background stories.
A great look into the foods of Israel, complete with interesting background stories.
Top 3 cookbooks I own. Filled with good stuff. Still making new discoveries after years of use.
Downside: this paperback edition refuses to lie open flat.
Downside: this paperback edition refuses to lie open flat.
Just fantastic.Great stories too, especially the one about the wife who gets "repudiated" for turning her husband's couscous into a loaf of bread.
This is the book I taught myself to cook with and I have a great deal to thank the author for. Deservedly a classic.
Seriously the last word on pan-Middle-easterns cooking.
Amazing.
I don't know what I would do without this book!
Amazing.
I don't know what I would do without this book!
A classic reference and resource book on Middle Eastern food. I love it.
Apr 25, 2010
Patti McDermott
marked it as cookbooks
I have a copy of the 2nd edition, printed in 1972. My copy is a 1974 reprint.
Another cookbook that is a literary as well as a culinary classic.
Neat recipes/information.
I want to like this book more than I do, and I'll keep giving it more chances, but I've found a lot of the recipes, while not exactly dull, to be unremarkable. To be fair, I haven't cooked through even a fifth of the book yet. It does serve as a solid way to get a broad regional handle on ME food from one source, and Claudia Roden writes beautifully. If I were to re-try those recipes I have cooked, I'd probably triple her herb / spice quantities to achieve a more authentic replication of taste.
Me like.
Aug 12, 2012
Linda Kirshstein
added it
like
Rich with recipes and stories, fun to read. Am just learning about Persian and related Middle Eastern cooking, expanding on experiments with Moroccan and North African flavors. Some of the recipes are very basic variations on what could pass for European dishes. Others are so heavy with cumin and cardamom that they can overwhelm an unfamiliar palate. But in between are lots of gems, and some great stories and jokes. I got a copy from the library but will be buying one for my shelf.
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Claudia Roden was brought up in Cairo. She finished her education in Paris and later studied art in London. Starting as a painter she was drawn to the subject of food partly through a desire to evoke a lost heritage - one of the pleasures of a happy life in Egypt.
With her bestselling classic, A Book of Middle Eastern Food, first published in 1968, Roden revolutionized Western attitudes to the cuis...more
More about Claudia Roden...
With her bestselling classic, A Book of Middle Eastern Food, first published in 1968, Roden revolutionized Western attitudes to the cuis...more
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Dec 27, 2012 01:09am
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