About Claudia Claudia Roden was born to a cosmopolitan Jewish family in Cairo, where she grew up eating – and questioning the origin of – food from all over the Middle East. She began by collating recipes at a young age from everybody she met, from family members to virtual strangers. “Food was,” she explains, “a way of re-connecting with my culture – my lost heritage. And the discovery of a 13th century manuscript in the British Library eventually led to my interest in food sociology and anthropology.” Claudia’s meticulously researched first book, A Book of Middle Eastern Food (1968), transformed Western attitudes towards this then little-known cuisine. No longer was the Middle East seen purely in political terms – Claudia introduced the aromatic and wholesome ingredients of Middle Eastern cookery, and her writing bristled with passion and warmth. Matthew Fort once wrote: “Claudia Roden guided me and thousands of other curious cooks through this fabulous culinary landscape with a mixture of humour, learning and delicate greed.”
 Her aim is to simplify traditional recipes and make them accessible to a younger generation
Claudia says that in the age of globalisation and the Internet, it’s particularly important to record old recipes and understand their cultural context. “There’s room for modern food, but new for the sake of newness is not necessarily better. You need to preserve the old, too”, says Claudia. At a time when there’s an increasing emphasis on healthier, lighter cooking, her aim is to simplify traditional recipes and make them accessible to a younger generation.
 Claudia has also written authoritatively about Mediterranean, Italian and Jewish food, and is currently writing a book on Spanish cookery. In a career spanning more than 45 years, she has won numerous awards and is considered iconic. As historian Simon Schama once stated: “Claudia Roden is no more a simple cookbook writer than Marcel Proust was a biscuit baker. She is, rather, memorialist, historian, ethnographer, anthropologist, essayist, poet…” Getting startedClaudia advises to use common sense and intuition when cooking Middle Eastern food for the first time, and not follow recipes slavishly. She says, "don’t be afraid to adapt recipes to suit your own taste and adjust instructions accordingly. Feel free to give a recipe longer cooking time if you think it needs it, or use less of an ingredient than suggested." If you’re disappointed with an ingredient, she says, don’t give up – simply change brands. Storecupboard ingredientsStock up well on these essential items: - Rice: basmati is preferred all over the Middle East; round-grain is used for stuffings and rice pudding
- Bulgar: coarse and medium for pilaffs, and the fine variety for tabbouleh (herby bulgar salad) and kibbeh (rissoles)
- Couscous: medium for everyday use; very fine to accompany tagines and sweet dishes
- Chickpeas, beans (especially white and black-eye), and lentils (yellow for soups, brown for mixing with rice or bulgar)
- Onions and garlic
- Lemons
- Dried vermicelli
- Olive oil for dressings and cold dishes, and other oils such as sunflower for hot dishes
- Mastic: an aromatic resin from the lentisc tree, which should be crushed with sugar and used judiciously
- Pine nuts, almonds and pistachios
- Olives
- Tahina: the Lebanese term for sesame paste
Spices and aromatics All Middle Eastern countries have their own tradition of spices and aromatics. Essential ones include cumin, coriander, cinnamon, caraway seeds, cayenne pepper, cardamom seeds, allspice, paprika, dried powdered ginger, saffron, sumac (crushed dried sour berries), pomegranate molasses, rosewater and orange blossom water. Claudia advises the use of ground spices for convenience, but says “buy them in small quantities and store them in the dark”. Cooking equipmentNo special equipment is needed for cooking Middle Eastern food. Couscousiers (two-tiered saucepans with tight-fitting lids) were once popular in Morocco, but these days most Moroccans use instant couscous or cook it in the microwave. Claudia prefers to cook couscous in the oven.
 While once tagines (shallow terracotta cooking pans with conical lids) were widely used, nowadays most Moroccans use pressure cookers. Claudia advises to simply use saucepans – but make sure to reduce sauces so that they are rich and thick – and use tagines only to serve food so that it looks attractive. Cooking techniquesThe major difference between techniques used in Middle Eastern and Western cookery is that in the Middle East, meat is cooked very slowly and for a long time until it’s very tender – except for kebabs, which are cooked quickly on skewers or under a grill. Various countries have different methods of cooking rice, but Claudia suggests sticking to just one and perfecting that. To drinkAlthough observant Muslims don’t drink alcohol, it’s consumed by Christians and tolerated by secular governments. Lebanon, Morocco and Turkey all produce wines, and arrack (flavoured with aniseeds) is also drunk. Moroccan Jews occasionally drink mahia (spirit made from figs). Yoghurt drinks, syrups (like sherbets), and mint tea are also popular. Freshly produced juices, says Claudia, are particularly fashionable. RecipesWe have selected the following recipes from Claudia’s most recent book, Arabesque, for you to try...
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