[rachel]

Can anyone recommend an author who writes with the same kind of authority as Elizabeth David, but about Eatern Mediterranean food and/or African food (North or Sub-Saharan)? By Elizabeth David-like, I mean someone who has clearly left their own kitchen and travelled to find out the origins of a recipe, explains as much and explains about each recipe. I am getting very tired of an endless production of 'super-chef' TV style books with no regard for either the history or tradition of food. . .

 

[athenaeus]

Xmmmm Rachel!

Demanding as always! If someone wants to answer to your questions must now at least a couple of dead languages!!

Apart of the recipe book of my grandmother Ester ...the only book I know as the one you describe is the book of Athenaeus , the original one ...
But as always I will check because the subject inspired me

 

[suzanne]

These are just the books I have in my own library; I'm sure there are more!

Paula Wolfert has several books out, including The Cooking of the Eastern Mediterranean and Couscous and Other Good Foods from Morocco.

Claudia Roden has The New Book of Middle Eastern Foodwhich is a recent update of her A Book of Middle Eastern Food.

Colette Rossant, who was born there, wrote Memories of a Lost Egypt.

Joyce Goldstein has Sephardic Flavors: Jewish Cooking of the Mediterranean and Cucina Ebraica: Flavors of the Italian Jewish Kitchen.

And, finally, Jessica Harris includes some North African recipes in The Africa Cookbook.

All of these differ from Elizabeth David in that they write their recipes with actual, precise measurements (!) -- but their research and love of the food is surely equal.

 

[rachel]

Thank you very Suzanne,
I should have thought of Paula Wolfert myself, I've heard that she is very good. It's just that she's not so famous this side of the Atlantic. And I have to confess that i don't object to precise measurements, just food as fashion (or 'the new porn,' as a journalist wrote in The Guardian a couple of weeks ago.
Athenaeus, I hope to be astounded by your insight into reading material!