After writing for years on travel, art, and design, her passion for food led to her first cookbook, New Tapas, followed by The North African Kitchen and Mexican Modern. Her latest is Andaluz: A Food Journey Through Southern Spain. Her travel writing has appeared in the Financial Times, The Telegraph, The Independent, The Guardian, BBC Travel and other publications. She is the author of National Geographic's guides to Spain and to Portugal, and has worked as a guest lecturer on their expeditions.
"Dunlop explores the cuisines of Morocco, Tunisia, and Libya as
interpreted by eight very different cooks. Aicha Ait Ouad, for
example, who comes from a tiny town in the Atlas Mountains, is the
chef for a private club in Marrakech; Khadouj Sentwi retired after
almost 30 years at a restaurant in Fez, where she was 'the iron
lady of the kitchen.' There are brief profiles of each cook,
followed by a dozen or so of her or his (seven of them are women)
signature recipes. Dunlop provides cultural and historical
background as well, and there are color photographs of the
individual kitchens and of North African street and market scenes.
There are relatively few titles on these cuisines-Paula Wolfert's
classic Couscous and Other Good Food from Morocco being the best
known-and Dunlop's is recommended for all subject collections."
Fiona Dunlop embarks on a 'voyage of gastronomic discovery' with
eight cooks serving as guides into their private kitchens in
Morocco, Tunisia and Libya. 'It is hard to find a more promiscuous
cuisine, ' Dunlop says of the North African range of fares, and her
lush, well-appointed book- with warm evocative photographs by Simon
Wheeler- supports her claim. Each section opens with a
mini-profile, as the cooks share their culinary approaches and
backgrounds. One learns, for instance, that Fassi women (women from
Fez, Morocco) traditionally learn cooking not only from their
mothers, but also in 'apprenticeships' with their aunts, each of
whom has a different specialty dish. Dunlop's selection of recipes
adroitly balances the different with the doable, from simple,
lovely appetizers like carrots with orange and cinnamon or honeyed
tomatoes, to full-bore, masterful productions like seven-vegetable
couscous or classic Fassi sweet pigeon pie. The reader-cook also
learns the culinary range of the region, such as five different
recipes for lamb tagine, including prune, almond-ball, saffron, and
quince variations.
In beautifully written prose that is sometimes lyrical, sometimes
factual and always respectful, Fiona Dunlop takes us to the area of
North Africa known as the Maghreb. The recipes are easy to follow
and the photographs evoke not just the dishes of the region, but
the region itself, while the stories show the great heart of this
area of the world.
The recipes are straightforward and, in most cases, require little
more than your regular cooking tools.--Melissa Lion,
www.culinate.com
 |
Ask a Question About this Product More... |
|
