[Sca-cooks] Claudia Roden (was: Santa bring any cool cooking stuff?)

[David Friedman]

>In a message dated 1/15/2007 8:24:16 PM Mountain Standard Time, Lilinah on
>sca-cooks-request at lists.ansteorra.org writes:
>
>
>>  Another friend found a hard-cover edition of Claudia Roden's first
>>  Middle Eastern cookbook. I had an early paperback edition and after
>>  around 35 years the paper was going to hell - turning brown and very
>>  brittle - and i'd mentioned that to her. So that was wonderful.
>>
>>
>
>Is that "A Book of Middle Eastern Food" published 1972 in the US?  Or should
>I be looking for another one? 
>
>I have really enjoyed this one since I lucked onto it at a craft fair.  If
>Ms. Roden has written other books on the subject I'd like to look for them.
>
>Thanks,
>Constanza

I cannot resist the temptation to tell a true story.

I first discovered medieval Islamic cooking via the reference in "A 
Book of Middle Easter Food" to al-Baghdadi, which at the time was 
available in translation only as an article in a scholarly journal 
from the 1930's. Fortunately I was a grad student at the University 
of Chicago at the time, and their library had the journal.

Many years later I received a letter, saying that the writer 
understood I was the source for Charles Perry's translation of 
Manuscrito Anonimo and asking how she could buy a copy.

Signed, Claudia Roden

She got a free copy and a thankyou note.
-- 
David/Cariadoc
www.daviddfriedman.com