Haifa brings out a lump of what looks like hard, white cheese. It’s kishik. Dried salted yoghurt. She slices it thinly and it crumbles into salty shavings. It’s very salty actually, with a flavour and texture that makes me think of Parmesan. “This is baladi yoghurt”, she says. What she means is, it comes from
Potato and egg. That bloody genius, comfort combination of soft, earthy starch and runny yolk, which together prove you don’t need money to eat like a king. Potato and egg are the basis of a Spanish tortilla, of course, which I first ate sandwiched between a white baguette in Valencia. A double carb-load that could not
Before you shrug and scroll on, this is not pesto. This is a potent, fiery, fresh hit of a relish, and it’s from Yemen. It’s zhoug… as tricky to spell as it is to pronounce. Yemenite food is entrenched in Israel. Or I should say Yemenite Jewish food, because there is a difference. What is great
It’s with a heavy heart (read: heavy stomach) that I left Georgia this week. What an incredible, colourful country that one is. And I chose this pic because I think it epitomises the way Georgians cook and eat, reuse and repurpose so well. I took it in Tbilisi, the capital, where cooperative shops are a
Check out these walnuts! These are whole unshelled walnuts, soaked and cooked until the hard shell becomes soft and edible. Bite into one and you can see how the shell encases the whole walnut inside. Who knew? In Armenia, popoki murabba appears on the table with breakfast or a pot of tea; whole glistening black
Fresh herbs are great. When all you have are a few back-of-fridge ingredients, herbs are the stuff to reach for. Finely chop and sprinkle them on a hot bowl of yesterday’s rice, chop them up with oil and drizzle over fried eggs or bash them into a pesto and spread over hot toast. These are delicious meals at little
My uncle Yves, or tonton Yves as we all call him, lives in the house my great grandparents once owned, and where my grandad was born. It’s a residential townhouse on a busy road in a smallish Northern French town. Nothing much to look at from the front, but walk through to the back and