Middle East | Gherkins & Tomatoes

War. Cook. Eat. Love.

April 10, 2012 by Cynthia Bertelsen

Annia Ciezadlo, author of Day of Honey* (Free Press, 2011) , isn’t the first person to cook her way through trying times. Nor will she be the last. But the makeshift kitchens where Ms. Ciezadlo peeled purple eggplant or stirred onions caramelizing for Mjadara Hamra (Lentils with Bulgur Wheat) happened to be in a couple of war zones, neither one in a New York high-rise or a Tuscan olive grove. No, unlike the heartbroken cook in Lily Prior’s La Cucina […]

Categories: Arab cooking, Book Reviews, Food News, Food writing, Garlic, Iran, Middle East • Tags: Annia Ciezadlo, Baghdad, Christian Science Monitor, Day of Honey, Iran, Iraq, Middle East, Mohamad Bazzi, New York Times

Arabs in France: An Early Account by an Egyptian Imam

January 20, 2012 by Cynthia Bertelsen

Rare is the native English speaker who reads and writes Arabic, classical or otherwise. And thus a vast body of literary work lies inaccessible to those who desire to increase their understanding and appreciation of the Arabic-speaking world. Because there is this hole in the material available to scholars and others, the scholarship of much of Europe’s past likely could be construed as being incomplete or even erroneous. That’s why it’s necessary to herald the appearance of works like An […]

Categories: Book Reviews, Egypt, France, French Cooking, Middle East • Tags: al-Tahtawi, Culinary History, Egypt, Food History, France, Imam in Paris, Orientalism, Ottoman Empire, Paris

Peregrinations and Pilgrimages: Egeria and the Flour Soup

September 30, 2010 by Cynthia Bertelsen

Rocks tumbled down the rugged sloping ground and dust spun like little tops as Egeria, a nun from early fourth-century Galicia, climbed toward the rocky summit of Mount Sinai. From that craggy point, she gazed at a world she defined by the holy sites mentioned in the Bible. And from there we saw beneath us Egypt and Palestine, the Red Sea, and the Parthenian Sea which leads to Alexandria, and finally the endless lands of the Saracens. (53) At night, […]

Categories: Lit & Food, Middle East, Reference • Tags: Christianity, Desert Fathers, Egeria, Holy Land, Middle East, Mount Sinai, Pilgrimage, Red Sea, Religion and Spirituality, Saint Benedict

Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme … and Lavender

May 5, 2010 by Cynthia Bertelsen

First, a pinch of etymology. The Greeks called lavender nardus after the Syrian city of Naardus, from which comes the word “spikenard.” (More on spikenard in a second.) As for our word, “lavender,” we must once again thank the Latin language for lavare, meaning, “to wash.” A member of the mint family, and cousin to rosemary, lavender can be used like rosemary in many dishes. Its blossoms form little spiked shoots sprouting flowers of many hues, not just purple. Cooking […]

Categories: Arab cooking, Cookbooks, England, Europe, Middle Ages, Middle East, Monasteries, Spain • Tags: Al-Andalus cookbook, Arab cooking, Charles Perry, Hildegard of Bingen, Lavender, Mary Magdalene, Mukhallal, Scarborough Fair, Spikenard

Hunger, a Weapon of War

November 13, 2009 by Cynthia Bertelsen

An army marches on its stomach. ~~ Napoleon Bonaparte ~~ Unfortunately, war is the human condition. And where there is war, there is hunger. From time immemorial, hunger has always been a weapon of war and each side will use it, if possible. An enemy’s hungry army, along with time, is often the only weapon the victor needs. “My kingdom for a horse” might better read “My kingdom for a plate of food.” Techniques used historically; and more recently in […]

Categories: Middle East • Tags: Desert Storm, Hunger, Iraq, MREs, Siege of Leningrad, War

The Archaeology of the Pomegranate

November 4, 2009 by Cynthia Bertelsen

Our sense of the ancientness of the pomegranate comes not just from words, but also from the earth. Words do provide clues to the incredible journey of the pomegranate, such as this little ditty inscribed in Egyptian hieroglyphics — said to be translated by Ezra Pound and Noel Stock, from an Italian rendition by Boris de Rachewiltz, based on papyrus and pottery preserved from 1567 – 1085 BC. The Pomegranate speaks: My leaves are like your teeth My fruit like […]

Categories: Agriculture, Archaeology, Art, Methods, Middle East • Tags: Ann Sutter, Archaeology, Cheryl Ward, Pomegranates

The Chicken or the Egg? 3. Instructions to the Cook

October 14, 2009 by Cynthia Bertelsen

Eggs a guilty pleasure? There’s a reason for that. Thanks to Dr. Thomas Royle Dawber’s research team and the famous “gold standard” Framingham Study,[1] eggs morphed into things to be eaten on the sly, enjoyed alone, like a whole bag of foil-wrapped Dove chocolates. Based on the weak statistical correlation between cholesterol levels and heart disease in the original phase of that study, and the assumption that cholesterol in food automatically affected blood cholesterol, the American Heart Association and the […]

Categories: Cookbooks, Eggs, Middle East • Tags: Annals of the Caliphs’ Kitchen, Cholesterol, Cooks, Eggs, Framingham Study, Nawal Nasrallah

Iran: The Beauty of an Ancient Cuisine

June 23, 2009 by Cynthia Bertelsen

Once upon a time, my brother married a beautiful young woman, an exile from Iran. And at their wedding feast, which she and her mother and sister cooked, I ate Persian food for the first time. Such intricate flavors and ingredient combinations, each mouthful a celebration of life and love. And when she, her mother, and my brother visited us in Morocco, her mother brought me a copy of New Food of Life: Ancient Persian and Modern Iranian Cooking and […]

Categories: Iran, Photography • Tags: Cooking, Cooks, Food Photography, Iran, Persian Cooking

Ibn Sayyār al-Warrāq: The Tenth-Century’s Answer to Jamie Oliver?

April 23, 2009 by Cynthia Bertelsen

Sit at dinner tables as long as you can, and converse to your hearts’ desire, for these are the bonus times of your lives. (Annals of the Caliphs’ Kitchens, p. x) Talk about a window into the past and a mirror to the present! A thousand years plus some separate us from the author and recipes of Ibn Sayyār al-Warrāq’s tenth-century Kitāb al-Tabīkh. In the words of the translator, Nawal Nasrallah,* al-Warrāq’s purpose “was to ‘anthologize’ the celebrated Abbasid cuisine.” […]

Categories: Cookbooks, Middle Ages, Middle East • Tags: Arab Cookery, Cookbooks, Cooking, Food, Ibn Sayyār al-Warrāq, Iraq, Nawal Nasrallah

Arab Food and Cuisine — Inspirations

September 24, 2008 by Cynthia Bertelsen

Cooking in the Arab world, in general, adheres to one of the most healthful food patterns on earth, probably healthier in many ways than the Mediterranean model (and that is the stuff of a special future post). The freshest food, the most beautiful colors, the greatest imagination in wielding the pan, this is what the food of the Middle East offers. But most of all, I hold women like this woman in my heart, because she is Everywoman, Arab and […]

Categories: Bibliographies, Middle East • Tags: Arab cooking, Bibliographies, Books, Cooking, Food, Middle East

Bedouin Life Shaped Arab Culture (Photo credit: C. Bertelsen)

FOOD AND THE STRANGER IN THE MIDDLE EAST : A Different Look at a Misunderstood Culture

September 23, 2008 by Cynthia Bertelsen

Warriors universally used to lay down their swords or knives at the doorway of their enemy when they broke bread together. Eating together, praying together, speaking together were possible only when no one felt vulnerable. Only in that way could “the Other” become human. Like their Bedouin neighbors, and ancestors, Arabs today offer their guests – even strangers – the best they have, often denying themselves of basic comfort and food in order to please guests. By killing and roasting […]

Categories: Bread, Middle East, Recipes • Tags: Arab cooking, Cookbooks, Cooking, Food, Middle East

Gherkins & Tomatoes

Meditations and Photographs about Food, Cooking, and Life

Category Archives: Middle East