Jewish Food: Claudia Roden and Simon Schama in Conversation

Accompanying the British Library's onsite Hebrew Manuscripts exhibition, food writer Claudia Roden and historian Simon Schama draw from their research and personal experience to discuss the history, evolution and culture of Jewish food. Chaired by Lucy Silver. Speakers Claudia Roden is a cookbook writer and anthropologist based in the UK. She grew up in Cairo and studied in both Paris and London. She has published multiple bestsellers including the international award-winning The Book of Jewish Food: An Odyssey from Samarkand and Vilna to the Present Day and she revolutionised Western attitudes to Middle Eastern cuisines in 1968 with her bestselling cookbook, A Book of Middle Eastern Food. Other books include Coffee; Picnic: The Complete Guide to Outdoor Food, Mediterranean Cookery; The Food of Italy, Claudia Roden’s Invitation to Mediterranean Cooking, Tamarind and Saffron: Favourite Recipes from the Middle East, Arabesque: Sumptuous Food from Morocco, Turkey and Lebanon; and The Food of Spain. Aside from her writing career Roden has presented cookery shows on the BBC and she is co-chair of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery. Simon Schama is University Professor of Art History and History at Columbia University; the author of 19 books including Landscape and Memory, and writer/ presenter of over 50 TV films for the BBC. His latest series, The Romantics and Us, will air on BBC2 in mid September. Lucy Silver (Chair) was born in Glasgow and studied literature, philosophy, art history and psychology at London University. She trained and worked as a psychoanalytic psychotherapist and was attached to the counselling service at UCL for ten years. She has been Co Chair of Jewish Book Week since 2011 and directed the festival from 2014 to 2018. Food Season supported by KitchenAid https://www.kitchenaid.co.uk/