2 comments about Egyptian Soups: Hot And Cold.

1. Following a recent sojourn in the Sudan I searched around desperately for a Sudani cookbook. This little book caught my eye though and imagine the thrill when I discovered that despite the title the author's late chef was indeed a gentleman originally from that country! On a hot South African Christmas day I served a cold apricot soup and it brought with it all the delights of the region. Every page bumps with sensual bites of instruction and information. Treat yourself.



2. I can hardly wait to try several of these recipes---wish the book contained more--it is sparse

No comments about Wine In Ancient Egypt: A Cultural and analytical study (bar s).

No comments about Food and Cooking in Ancient Egypt (Cooking in World Cultures).

3 comments about Apricots on the Nile: A Memoir with Recipes.

1. I really enjoyed reading this book - even though I will probably never try the recipes. I read the whole book through in one sitting (although, to be truthful, it's a small book.) Besides being an interesting memoir of the author's childhood in Egypt during WWII, in a wealthy Jewish family, it's also an honest account of her alienation from her mother, which really spoke to me. The author is a good writer, which makes the book easy and rewarding to read.



2. This was one of my favorite all-time books. I purchased one as a gift for my sister also. I love to read about other cultures, and this was an enjoyable read.



3. Not as good a story as some other cooking memoirs I've read, kind of sad. Fair recipes

5 comments about Memories of a Lost Egypt: A Memoir with Recipes.

1. If you are like me, you enjoy reading cookbooks that are more than just compilations of recipes but also include evocative text that recreates another time and place. "Memories of a Lost Egypt" is such a book. The author's vivid and touching reminiscences of her childhood often center on food and her relationships with her family's cooks, and she skillfully interweaves her narrative with recipes for the delicious dishes she savored and learned to prepare.

   Another Middle Eastern cookbook that I treasure is Sonia Uvezian's "Recipes and Remembrances from an Eastern Mediterranean Kitchen: A Culinary Journey through Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan." It too evokes a strong sense of time and place, and it is filled with outstanding recipes.




2. This book is not only charming but is beautifully written. I had tears in my eye as I read it. The recipes are mouth watering and I ran to buy some Egyptian ingredients to try the recipes. Colette Rossant gives an evocative picture of the life of a Jewish family during second world war.



3. This is a lovely little memoir with recipes. Colette Rossant is reminiscing about her childhood years growing up with her Jewish Egyptian grandparents in their mansion in Cairo during WWII. This poor little rich girl who was abandoned by her French mother, grew closer to the kitchen, and the cook Ahmed. Colette remembers many of the special recipes prepared by Ahmed and incorporates them into this nostalgic memoir of her childhood days. This is a lovely and sentimental memoir about the Egyptian belle epoque that also includes some savory Egyptian recipes with a gourmet twist.



4. I found this book at a landmark bookstore on Picadilly Street in London, England. It was titled APRICOTS ON THE NILE, A Memoir With Recipes. I just realized via a search on Amazon that the title is different here in the USA. I like the English title better. This book is a 'must get' for anyone who cooks. There will be some recipes that sound "ugh", but many are mouth watering. Personally, I liked the Tomato Salad(s), Roast Chicken on a Bed of Leeks, Meatballs with Apricot Sauce, Angel Hair Pasta with Nuts, Vegetable Salad, Traditional Hummus, Christmas Four-Meat Pate, Lentil Soup, and Roast Leg of Lamb. The book is more than just recipes, though. You will be taken on a cultural trip through Cairo, Egypt and Paris, France through the eyes of a little girl & a woman who has not lost sight of her ancestral heritage. It's a quick and enjoyable read where you'll be thrust into memories of a wonderful childhood...try it, you'll like it. Smiles :)



5. I received the book as a gift for the 2007 Christmas. Rossant was able to skillfuly blend imagery, scents, and sounds into a portrait that rivals any treasured piece of modern art. Nonetheless, she couldn't help but overexpose her glamor. But why not? It's a glamorous picture, after all.
   
   Perhaps it's my Egyptian background that led me to sense some "us versus them" sentiment in her writing as, for example, in the relative positions of French and Egyptian Nuns in the convent where she was boarded as a school-age child, or the marginal portrayal of "upper middle class" Egyptian families vacationing in Switzerland. Perhaps this is the reality of Europeans escaping WWII Europe, circumscribing to themselves as many of us do when living abroad. There is no denying her friendship and love for many Egyptians that crossed path with her. In the final analysis, it's a well-written account of times and places that we all wish we had witnessed.

1 comments about Egyptian Food and Drink (Shire Egyptology).

1. The author discusses food production and preparation in Ancient Egypt. She describes what the Ancient Egyptians ate and how the food was possibly cooked; many details are provided on bread, beer, fruits, vegetables, meat, fowl and fish. She also writes about their beverages, and the importance of gardens. With numerous line drawings and illustrations, as well as a short glossary, it is a recommended reference for all.

5 comments about My Egyptian Grandmother's Mother Kitchen: Traditional Dishes Sweet and Savory.

1. The four star rating I gave this book is for the beautiful colored pictures - they are on each and every page! The range of recipes is quite encompassing but I do have some concerns in regard to the directions and flavoring of the dishes. You will need to have some basic knowledge of Middle Eastern cooking/spice mixes, etc., to have these recipes come out as they should. The pictures are a great help to show the completed product. One example of poor instructions/spices is the recipe for Macaroni Bechamel. It originally is quite a tedious recipe and the recipe contained in the book is not clear. Also, there are problems with translations; tomato juice is listed in numerous recipes when it should probably read "tomato sauce", the recipe for veal sweetbreads is shown as "thyroid glands" instead of thymus glands. Also, it lists ingredients like "gullash", "rugag" and "quata'if". Gullash would be the same as our phyllo (filo) dough. But, rugag is a type of cracker bread and quata'if is a small pancake. It's too bad that she didn't include recipes on how to make these. Fortunately, I have recipes for both these items but the reader new to this cuisine would be confused. I would only give two stars for the recipes themselves. It's a wonderful book to read for the "armchair cook". I am happy with my purchase!



2. I have purchased every Egyptian cookbook I can find to try and find the most authentic recipes to cook for my Egyptian fiance, and this is absolutely the best in terms of the food his Mom cooks. I would definitely recommend this cookbook to anyone who is enjoys or is interested in experiencing Egyptian food at its best.



3. Every Egyptian cook knows these dishes and how to prepare them. I love this book beacause as a non egyptian I envied my husbands sisters ablity to prepare these wonderful family dishes, I have tried many of these dishes before purchasing this book and did so so in results. Now, I can make all these dishes as well as my Egyptian family. And my husband loves them. So i give it 4 stars
   
   Great Book



4. I'm married to an Egyptian (and am not Egyptian), so I've been collecting Middle Eastern cookbooks for some time. I was quite excited to find "My Egyptian Grandmother's Kitchen" because it is a translation of an award-winning Egyptian cookbook. I guess I expected more from the AUC translation...as they did not really translate it for a non-Egyptian market.
   
   Pros:
   1. Photos of nearly every recipe. A definite change from most Middle Eastern cookbooks, including Claudia Roden.
   2. Very authentic recipes...although some may be too authentic for the average American. Tripe, brains, spleen, tongue, etc. are all included.
   
   Cons:
   1. Not specific directions. Lists spice mix, but doesn't tell you how to make it. If you have a Middle Eastern market, you may be able to find some premade spices...but they vary based on Brand and the country of origin (Lebanese is not the same as Egyptian--although it's better than nothing.) Claudia Roden, Sally Elias Hanna's excellent "Dining on the Nile," and May Bsisu's "Arab Table" all can give you ideas of which spices you really need.
   
   2. No specific oven instructions. Perhaps in keeping with her Grandmother's way of doing things, she says "medium-hot" oven rather than 350 degrees or whatever. Rather frustrating, but you can get cooking times/temps from other cookbooks. Some rough estimates:
   Hot 425 degrees F
   Medium 350 degrees F
   Warm 325 degrees F
   Low 300 degrees F
   
   3. Some recipes include Arabic names, some do not. Some ingredients are translated (often poorly so, making things more difficult), some are not.
   
   In general, I would not recommend this cookbook for the average American cook. Instead, I'd recommend Sally Elias Hanna's "Dining on the Nile." For Lebanese cuisine, "Kibbee 'n Spice and Everything Nice" by Janet Kalush is easy and good. "The Arab Table" is more of Gulf cuisine and is excellent, although has very time consuming recipes. For Syrian Jewish cuisine, "The Aromas of Aleppo" can't be beat. And of course, anything by Claudia Rodin is fabulous.



5. I live on a farm in Egypt and love the Egyptian country cooking. This encompasses a lot more than the items that are usually found in Egyptian cookbooks and this is the first cookbook I've found that covers recipes for the most down home items in a village repetoire. There are recipes here that my Egyptian friends don't know. I have a copy of this book and have bought it for friends here in Egypt and abroad. Wonderful book.

4 comments about Egyptian Cooking: A Practical Guide.

1. I have had the pleasure of using this book in my kitchen for two years now. I can honestly say that there is not a week that goes by that I don't find use for it! Although it is a bit difficult to ignore the page numbers and concentrate on the numbers assigned to each recipe, the outcome is well worth it! This book supplies an amazing number of recipes from every imaginable region of Egypt and many of the variations for each. I applaud the writer's insightful inclusion of such items as a spice index at the end of the book, and technoiques for handling foods not commonly used by Westerners. I would have liked some illustrations to assist with presentation, but all in all I am very pleased with the outcomes of my endeavors



2. This is a must have cookbook for anyone interested in Egyptian cuisine. Samia Abdelnour selected a variety of recipes that are easy to prepare with ingredients that are available locally. She cleverly included a glossary explaining the different foods, spices, kitchen utensils and also some useful hints. This is a value priced book considering the amount of recipes included in it. I have other Mediterranean cookbooks, but I find myself using this one more often. It's size makes it also very handy to use in the kitchen.



3. This is an authentic cookbook, it's been around for almost 20 years, and I've happily made a variety of recipes. The instructions are brief, and helpful. The Iman Bayaldi is prepared different than the style I'm used to..and still very good. Most dishes have 6 or less ingredients...pretty easy to gather up! If it had pictures, I'd have rated it higher--it's so helpful to have the right "look" for authenticity. There's over 300 recipes. The recipes are for 4-6 persons, easy to adjust.The table of contents is sparse; the index can have you running around a bit through the book. Chicken gizzards are not under "chicken" but are under "gizzards"! Beans are separate from lentils...logical, but not always intuitive...not a big drawback! some ingredients are, of course, hard to find if not near a Middle Eastern market...the internet should take care of ordering mastic grains, molokhiya (fresh or frozen), etc...Most ingredients are easily available in the USA. It has recipes for the classics, and also for brains, pigeon, rabbit, trotters, tripe, sheeps head etc...this is not a frou-frou book!
   If you want a broader taste of Middle Eastern foods, get Roden's New Book of Middle Eastern food.. to get a rich feel for Egytian and other similar cuisines which blend together...



4. I've had this book for a couple of years now. This is a good book that gives a lot of Egyptian recipes made by every-day Egyptian people. I recognize many, many of the recipes as ones that are made by my husband's family. So I feel it is a pretty good source for the basics.
   
   That being said, it leaves much to be desired with the instructions, which would be difficult for someone who doesn't really know how to cook or isn't already familiar with Middle Eastern cooking. For example, the recipe for Ta'maiya, or Falafel instructs you to soak the beans overnight, then drain and "mince" with dill, coriander, etc... Now if I took that literally and attempted to "mince" those items with a kitchen knife, the result would be a disastrous effort in futility and frustration. I know that I need to "mince" them in a food processor, and not your garden variety food processor, you need a good one (i use the cuisinart), to do it, otherwise you will quickly tire out your motor, and will have to process this recipe in about 8 batches, with rest time between each (like I used to do when I had a smaller Oscar food processor). Not to mention that she does not give any indication of how finely the mixture should be minced. This is one example of where some prior knowledge of Egyptian or Middle Eastern cooking (or cooking in general) is necessary to be successful at cooking some of her recipes.
   
   The set up is also a bit annoying, with the recipes numbered, and indexed that way (the index gives the number of the recipe, maybe #198, which just happens to be on page 95.) This is hard to get used to and I can't imagine why it was done this way, unless that is the way cookbooks are written over in Egypt. Not to mention that you may have to do some running around as one recipe's ingredient list may have you running to 3 or 4 other recipes.
   
   She has a good glossary, and list of spices in English and Arabic which is helpful, as well as a list of kitchen utensils that are used in Egypt.
   
   Some of the ingredients are not accurately translated, such as "Tomato Juice" in the recipe for Tomato sauce, stewed. I am pretty sure that she is not referring to Campbell's tomato juice or V-8, instead it should be tomato sauce (like from the can), all the Egyptian people I know that make this dish use the tomato sauce from the can.
   
   I felt that the biggest drawback of this book was, after having read it nearly cover to cover, was that there were hardly any recipes I was "dying" to try out. Usually when I read a cookbook, by the time I get to the end, I have a bunch of scrap papers stuck here and there marking recipes I'd like to try. Not so with this one. Maybe more pictures would have helped, maybe a little more "tasty" of a description, I don't know....something to tickle your taste buds and get you feeling a little hungry.... Perhaps some of the dishes were too mundane (would you want a basic American cookbook with directions for grilled cheese sandwich, scrambled eggs with salt and pepper, or mashed potatoes? This might be helpful if you wanted to know about the basics of everyday American cooking but not so appealing to actually hurry up and try to make)
   
   The directions were too instructive, often 3 or four lines, and not written in a way that made the dishes sound appealing. (no one could guess how delicious ta'maiya is by reading the recipe, and that is unfortunate because there are probably countless delicious recipes in this book that just don't sound that great)
   
   For example, minced meat with vegetables:
   Mince beef with vegetables (in this case beef, onion, tomato, parsley, S & P) twice or pound until smooth. Shape into fingers, skewer, and grill basting 1-2 times with cooking oil, or shape into round cakes and fry.
   
   I don't know about you, but I am not running out to the grocery store to get the ingredients to make this tonight!
   
   This is a good basic Egyptian cookbook. There are few of them out there, so if that is what you are looking for specifically, get it because there is little else to choose from (believe it or not, one month after I bought this on Amazon, my father in law showed up with the exact same book that he had bought in Egypt!), and this does give you the basics of Egyptian cooking. I have ordered her other cookbook to see what's in it, as well as another Egyptian cookbook that I just spotted on Amazon. I am interested to see how both of those turn out to be.
   
   If I was rating this book solely on the fact that it is specifically an Egyptian cookbook, I would have given it five stars based on the fact that it is only one of three I have found (one of the others is written by this author)
   
   If I was rating it as a cookbook in general I would have probably have given it 1 or 2 stars because of the above comments.

1 comments about Food fit for Pharaohs: An Ancient Egyptian Cookbook.

1. This is an interesting, short, book of current Egyptian dishes. However, the title is missleading!! Readers would buy the book, excpecting (as the title suggests), real ancient Egyptian recipes (especially that the book is published by the British Museum), but will find that all the dishes in the book are simply contemporary.

3 comments about Nile Style: Egyptian Cuisine and Culture: Ancient Festivals, Significant Ceremonies, and Modern Celebrations (Hippocrene Cookbook Library).

1. Egypt is an ancient land of monuments and artifacts. It's also a country rich in distinctive culinary traditions that encompass food and dining as a fundamental element of both ancient and modern festivals, ceremonies, and celebrations. An internationally recognized culinary authority, food historian, and cooking instructor, Amy Riolo brings her many years of experience and expertise to bear when she compiled the recipes comprising "Nile Style: Egyptian Cuisine And Culture", a illustrated, 220-page compendium of superbly presented recipes that range from such exotic fare as Nubian Bread ad Hibiscus Punch; to traditional dishes like Lentils, Rice, and Pasta with Spicy Tomato Sauce; to classics like Egyptian Rice, Apricot, and Pistachio Pudding. The Egyptian names for each of the presented recipes is given along with the English translations of their names. Enhanced with the inclusion of a glossary of ingredients commonly used in Egyptian cooking, a 'Where to Buy' guide (including specific contact information for vendors of specialty ingredients not otherwise readily available), a tour-guide listing of superb Egyptian restaurants, an extensive bibliography, and a handy index, "Nile Style" is an enthusiastically recommended addition for personal and community library ethnic cookbook collections.



2. "Nile Style" is much more than a cookbook. Packed with deep research and excellent reporting of Middle Eastern cultures, celebrations and rituals, "Nile Style" is also a history book. Amy Riolo writes from her soul, pulling the reader into understanding lifestyles from all countries in the Mid-East and Northern Africa. As a marketing professional in the global coffee and tea industries, this book provides an historic education from ancient customs to modern day cuisine. Recipes are easy to prepare and open a new world of flavors to enjoy.



3. This book provides a wealth of culinary history along with tantalizing recipes, allowing the reader to understand the context of each dish. The author, Amy Riolo, has traveled extensively in Egypt, and she includes excerpts of her experiences in the book. As a result, Nile Style is fun to read as travel literature as well as a cookbook. With the home cook in mind, Amy has a adapted the recipes for easy after-work cooking. I especially enjoyed learning about and cooking with exotic ingredients like orange blossom water, molokhiya, and baby okra.