This is the second episode of our Who Run The World? season celebrating women in food.

Today’s guest is Claudia Roden, the goddess of Middle Eastern food writing. Claudia is a cookbook writer and anthropologist, her career spans over 50 years. Originally from Egypt, Claudia grew up in Cairo and studied in Paris and London. In 1956 when her parents fled Egypt to London, Claudia began collecting recipes from the Jewish diaspora arriving from all over the Middle East as a way to make a connection between refugees and their homelands. This led to multiple bestselling cookbooks including the international award-winning The Book of Jewish Food, and she revolutionised western attitudes to Middle Eastern cuisines in 1968 with her bestselling cookbook, A Book of Middle Eastern Food.

 We talked to Claudia about her unusual route to a career in food writing, how attitudes to women working have changed over the last 50 years, the women who inspired her, and how travelling alone as a woman was treated with suspicion yet opened many kitchen doors for her research. Claudia is a true inspiration, our hero, and we owe so much to her in paving the way for us.

This interview is part of our series Who Run The World? Women in Food in which we will be chatting to leading women across the food industry, writers, broadcasters, critics, chefs and restaurateurs.

Our final episode will air on 8th March International Women’s Day.

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Listen to episode 1 with Andi Oliver

 

Producer: Miranda Hinkley

Manager: Louisa Cornford

Vocals: Kristine Kruz 

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