Product Description

The best North African food is rooted in the home rather than
in restaurants. For her first book, "New Tapas", Fiona Dunlop sought out
innovative tapas bar chefs; this time she
turns her attention to home cooks producing stunning and often innovative
food in beautiful settings in Morocco, Tunisia and Libya. As well as
classic dishes, these cooks are creating new recipes by fusing traditional
Arab and Mediterranean food. Their recipes and stories are accompanied by
photographs taken in courtyards filled with orange trees or fountains,
kitchens with patterned tiles and typical dining rooms. We also see the
markets of the Medina where they shop (at and the Medina they visit). The
book features a chapter dedicated to each of the eight home cooks as well
as evocative text on North Africa.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #263426 in Books
• Published on: 2007-09-13
• Binding: Hardcover
• 192 pages

Synopsis
The best North African food is rooted in the home rather than in restaurants. For her first book, "New Tapas", Fiona Dunlop sought out innovative restaurant and bar cooks; this time she turns her attention to home cooks producing stunning and often innovative food in beautiful houses in Morocco, Tunisia and Libya. As well as classic dishes, these cooks are creating new recipes by fusing traditional Arab and Mediterranean food. Their recipes and stories are accompanied by photographs of their food taken in courtyards strewn with orange trees, kitchens with Arabian tiles and classical dining rooms as well as of the markets they shop at and the Medina they visit. The book features a chapter dedicated to each home cook. Fiona profiles eight cooks in all.

Customer Reviews

A delightful treat
This is a wonderful book. I bought it because I loved Dunlop's last book, New Tapas, which featured recipes from Spain's top tapas chefs. This is in a similar vein, a sort of cross-over between cookery and travel, combining evocative descriptions (and images) of the souks and medinas of North Africa with mouth-watering recipes. Interestingly, seven of the eight chefs featured are women - as Dunlop points out "Women rule the kitchen; men do cook, but mainly in the public realm of restaurants and as banquet organisers, and readily admit that their wives and mothers are behind the most tenderly-concocted dishes". There are intimate portraits (both photographically and in words) of the cooks involved and Dunlop's passion for food shines through in the descriptions of everything from classic tagines and other family dishes through to soups, salads, and stews which combine the spices, fruits, herbs and other produce of the Maghreb in new and sometimes unexpected ways. And unlike many `exotic' cookbooks, the recipes are relatively simple and easy to create a home. With Christmas approaching, this is a great gift for foodie friends.