FOOD
Claudia Roden, Culinary Icon This influential food writer is ‘not nearly finished yet’ | By Adeena Sussman
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hen claudia roden writes a cookbook, time is most certainly not of the essence. Consider the fact that by her own account, the legendary British-Jewish food writer spent a combined 25 years researching, traveling and cooking to produce her two most seminal works: A Book of Middle Eastern Food (1968) and The Book of Jewish Food: An Odyssey from Samarkand and Vilna to the Present Day (1996). “I never want to be pressured to finish a book. I want it to take shape the way it’s meant to,” Roden told me by phone from her home in the London neighborhood of Hampstead Garden Suburb. Credited with helping to introduce home cooks to ingredients like pomegranate molasses and preserved lemons decades ago—as well as popularizing a style of cookbook writing steeped in research—Roden is one of the most influential food writers alive today, Jewish or otherwise. “Along with other pioneers of Jewish-focused food scholarship like Joan Nathan and Gil Marks, Claudia paved the way for my generation of food writers,” said author Leah Koenig, whose most recent work is The Jewish Cookbook. “They opened doors to kitchens around the world and helped to share the diverse Jewish food traditions bubbling away on stoves inside them.” Roden’s status as a culinary icon
has been further cemented with the recent launch of Claudia Roden’s Mediterranean: Treasured Recipes from a Lifetime of Travel, her first book in a decade. Compared to the extended research schedules of the past, Claudia Roden’s Mediterranean took a mere six years to complete. While her signature cookbooks feel almost academic in approach, dense with chapters of historical detail and short on visuals, this one, while still packed with information, features an airy layout, highly stylized food photos and pictures of family dinners in her backyard. The beautiful book reads like a clothbound peek into your favorite college professor’s prolonged European vacation—if that professor was one of the best cooks on earth. Many of the recipes are meatless,
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and dishes like Lentils and Rice With Dates and Caramelized Onions and Chicken Baked With Olives and Boiled Lemon are simpler than you might expect. Indeed, they are designed by the 84-year-old Roden to be relatively easy to execute. “I am cooking for my age now,” said Roden, who, in recent years, has begun using canned chickpeas instead of ones she soaks overnight. She will also opt for frozen vegetables as long as they don’t sacrifice quality. “People want things to be easier in the kitchen, and I wanted this book to be all about pleasure.” When we spoke, Roden was still on a high from a glowing feature by food writer Melissa Clark—who had traveled to London to spend time with her last summer—that had been published in The New York Times the day before. “It really is fabulous because it’s all somewhat unexpected,” said Roden, still modest after her many years of success. “Claudia is extremely warm and generously hospitable,” Clark wrote to me in an email. “I think it would be physically impossible for her to receive a guest without offering lovely things to eat and drink. She has the ability to create an intimacy with you immediately. Maybe it’s the food and wine that break the ice. She’s an active, curious listener— analytical and brilliant but also compassionate and caring.” It’s precisely those dual traits—a
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