Day of Honey, Day of Onions.

August 19, 2011 5:39 AM

Annia Ciezadlo, author of Day of Honey: A Memoir of Food, Love and War [reviews, excerpt] discusses Iraqi intellectualism, war and food, ancient Iraqi cooking, the Middle East's dependence on imported wheat, and the link between bread and civilian uprisings.

Three more interviews on the book, one with author reading on NPR, one discussing the role of wheat imports and food generally in the Arab Spring on WBEZ91.5 (the "download" button works for me), articles by the same author, facebook page, a small selection of recipes from the book, and some links to food and recipe sites from the book's bibliography.

posted by Ahab (7 comments total)

Oh my goodness. Birthday present for my honey who loves cooking and has a passionate interest in Middle East politics: FIXED

Thanks :)
posted by greenish at 6:06 AM on August 19, 2011

The Great Food Crisis of 2011.

No recipes though.
posted by twoleftfeet at 6:56 AM on August 19, 2011

The Middle East is the only region in the world outside of sub-Saharan Africa where rates of malnutrition actually rose over the past decade or two, instead of falling.

Well, sanctions and trade embargoes work don't they? Not as intended, obviously, but what else can you do with all those recalcitrant Middle Eastern regimes? No one wants to starve civilians, but sometimes you just have to. Now if the West can just muster the will and determination to starve the children a bit more maybe the Arab Spring will turn to summer.
posted by three blind mice at 7:08 AM on August 19, 2011 [1 favorite]

So far, I've only read the interview that is listed near the top, but it was great! I will return to these links later!
posted by Slothrop at 9:14 AM on August 19, 2011

Some of the recipes sound very tasty!
posted by Katjusa Roquette at 3:44 PM on August 19, 2011

Great post! Looking forward to browsing through all the links. I love cooking, have a couple Middle Eastern cookbooks already, quite fascinated by all aspects of that region.
posted by dorey_oh at 4:45 PM on August 19, 2011

Something I missed when I first posted, there's another couple of great recipes in the Saveur article about Iraqi refugees in Lebanon - fourth article on the articles page, in .pdf format.
posted by Ahab at 12:20 AM on August 20, 2011