Jewish book week
London’s international literary festival

The New Book of Middle Eastern Food

Claudia Roden

Chair: Sue MacGregor

05/03/2019 12:30 pm
JW3, Auditorium at JW3

Legendary food writer Claudia Roden, exiled from Egypt in the ’50s, was drawn to the subject of food through a desire to remember her lost heritage. Claudia has had a seismic impact on what and how we eat, and how we think about food. Her Book of Middle Eastern Food, offering over 800 recipes interwoven with evocative stories, was originally published here in 1968, before which few of us would have known how to replicate the delicate and exquisite cookery of the Middle East. BBC Radio 4 recently broadcast a 5-part dramatization of Claudia’s life, calling it A Book of Middle Eastern Food. Claudia talks about her life and work through the prism of the food and the countries she has loved.

In conversation with Jewish Book Council co-Chair and former Director, Lucy Silver.

Sponsored by the Jerusalem Foundation

Claudia Roden


Claudia Roden is a food writer with a special interest in the social, cultural and historical background of food. She is based in the UK. Roden grew up in Cairo, went to school in Paris and came to London to study art. She revolutionised Western attitudes to Middle Eastern cuisines with her bestselling A Book of Middle Eastern Food in 1968 and went on to publish multiple bestsellers including the international award-winning The Book of Jewish Food. She is president of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery and an Honorary Fellow of SOAS and UCL Universities.
Her latest book Med is her most personal - of remembered people and places, glorious food and magic moments in her travels around the Mediterranean, what she cooks today for family and friends.
Image cr Jamie Lau, Waitrose & Partners Food

Lucy Silver


Lucy Silver was born in Glasgow, studied literature, philosophy, art history and psychology and is a psychoanalytic psychotherapist. She worked at the UCL Student Counselling Service. Lucy has been Co-Chair of the Jewish Book Council since 2011 and directed the festival from 2014–2018.

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