The Book Depository Arabesque by Claudia Roden
280 ratings
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Price: £35.00
Brand: The Book Depository
Description: Arabesque : Hardback : Penguin Books Ltd : 9780718145811 : 071814581X : 27 Oct 2005 : The author returns to the countries of Turkey, Lebanon and Morocco in search of new and old recipes and to find out how cooking has evolved since she first introduced readers to these cuisines in the 1960s. In this book, she pays tribute to the different culinary histories and contemporary food of these countries. The Book Depository Arabesque by Claudia Roden - shop the best deal online on thebookbug.co.uk
Category: Books
Merchant: The Book Depository
Product ID: 9780718145811
MPN: 071814581X
GTIN: 9780718145811
Author: Dr. M. Haywood
Rating: 5
Review: Bought it s/h hardback as a replacement for a 1980 paperback edition of Roden's Middle Easter Food, that has now completely disintegrated. I like how the new book has distinct sections for each of the three countries, which helps make the distinctions between their cuisines much more apparent and provides some useful contextualisation of each. There's a great deal of variety and the book is well set out and easy to read in the kitchen. My sole quibble is that although it's beautifully bound and lavishly illustrated (the latter seems obligatory these days), a lot of the close-up photographs are really irritating because they've been shot with very little depth of field so in many half the subject is out of focus which seems a triumph of illustrative style over functional illustration. A lot of the other photos lack crispness too, though this might be due to the paper they're printed on. However one buys this sort of book for its the recipes not the illustrations,and it's a useful addition to the kitchen library.
Author: Gordon
Rating: 3
Review: Fine if you you want some pretty standard, easy dishes, but if you want some inspiration on the very best food from the regions you may be disappointed. Most of the recipes are pretty self explanatory and I could have made them up myself. Do you really need a whole recipe for frying prawns with garlic? There also seem to be endless variations on the very basic matter of roasting aubergines and adding them to some cooked tomatoes (and of course, parsley, which is often suggested in rather too high quantities). The only good thing for me about this books is the introductions to each country which, although gloss over some important topics to consider and focus disproportionately on other aspects, are quite interesting ( though nothing which couldn't be found with a quick google). She talks about all the spices used (and mixes e.g. Ras el hanout) but yet rarely uses any of them in the recipes, simply falling back on powdered cinnamon and ginger. Overall, although looking through some of the recipes can give you a general feel for the ingredients used in the countries, so many of the recipes are just too similar to each other or pretty self explanatory that cry out for a little more adventurous flavouring.
