Claudia Roden's Mediterranean: Treasured Recipes from a Lifetime of Travel

The legendary chronicler of Middle Eastern and Mediterranean foodways shares recipes and stories from decades of travel in the countries surrounding the great sea.

Born and raised in Cairo, Claudia Roden had a breakout success in 1968 with A Book of Middle Eastern Food. She drew the attention of the English-speaking world to cooking that it had heretofore grasped only in the most hazy fashion. Her success inspired and liberated her to travel further, ask more questions of the cooks she met, and to form an unequalled knowledge of Mediterranean food.

For this collection, Roden has focused on dishes she has never presented before. There are a few tweaks to timeless classics, but more often she has distilled the elements of a dish that has variations from Tangier to Toulon to Thessaloniki.

Chicken baked with olives and boiled lemon is inspired by the aromas of a great market square in Marrakesh. Octopus in red wine with potato salad that recalls a family on the Greek island of Skopoles who invited Roden in to dine. Meatballs with sour cherries, redolent of the flavors of Aleppo. Each of them conjures a world.

Hardcover. Color photography throughout.