enjoyed the whole article, esp claudia roden’s “idyllic” vision of the middle east where everyone got along quite well. love her deep connection to the muslim world on account of her sephardic heritage and of course the food sounds fabulous. just bought her book.
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Roden was born in Cairo. She has lived in London for more than fifty years, and she carries a British passport, holds respectably British left-wing views, owns a big house in Hampstead Garden Suburb, and has written ten cookbooks in the English language, including “A Book of Middle Eastern Food” and “The Book of Jewish Food,” and is finishing an eleventh, about the food of Spain. But if you ask where she’s from she says “Cairo” and if you ask her about the soup she says, “Melokhia, a soup no one but we Egyptians like”—which, she also says, is why she followed the smell to a stranger’s door that day, rang the bell, introduced herself to the Egyptians inside (they were not at all surprised), and was promptly invited in for lunch. More here.