Full Description
When Jennifer Felicia Abadi was a child, her mother often pulled down a well-worn home-made black recipe binder from her kitchen shelf and created sumptuous Syrian meals. As an adult, Abadi pulled down that same binder to make her own delicious meals. Mindful of the importance of tradition and the ease with which old-world knowledge vanishes, Abadi embarked on a labour of love with her grandmother to record all of her family's rich, mouth-watering Syrian dishes. The result is 'A Fistful of Lentils', an intimate culinary food album featuring over 125 Syrian-Jewish recipes, warm family anecdotes, and little-known stories of Syrian-Jewish culture. Syrian-Jewish cooking comes from the Sephardic (Spanish) and Mizrahic (Arabic) traditions rather than from the Ashkenazic (Eastern European) tradition. The lavish food features meats simmered with cumin, allspice, or cinnamon; savoury vegetables, stuffed or roasted; sweet and sour sauces; lemony dressings; and rich sugar-dusted pastries drenched in rosewater syrup or sprinkled with almonds. It all adds up to the best-kept secret in Middle Eastern cuisine.
