Web of Stories - Life Stories of Remarkable People | Claudia Roden - The Hay Festival Alhambra (83/155) @webofstories | Uploaded October 2023 | Updated October 2024, 1 day ago.
To listen to more of Claudia Roden’s stories, go to the playlist: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVV0r6CmEsFxE7ofp5PbJrqZf8sttxHqJ
Claudia Roden (b. 1936) is an Egyptian-born British cookbook writer and cultural anthropologist of Sephardi/Mizrahi descent. She is best known as the author of Middle Eastern cookbooks including "A Book of Middle Eastern Food", "The New Book of Middle Eastern Food" and "The Book of Jewish Food". In this unique interview for Web of Stories, Claudia Roden is talking to her granddaughter Nelly Wolman about her life in food. [Listener: Nelly Wolman; date recorded: 2022]
TRANSCRIPT: I was invited... that is also one way of travelling, when I had... yes, I was researching Spain at the time. But I was asked by the Hay Festival, the British Hay Festival... they did a festival called The Hay Festival Alhambra. And the festival was in Alhambra. And it was a festival in English, about Spain. But it was in particular... the theme was about the Arab influence in Spain. And I was invited to come and speak about the Arab influence. And so did Samuel Clark from Moro. He said, 'I don't speak, I don't like speaking'. But he did speak fantastically, he talked about his restaurant, how he mixed, how he cooked Spanish food and how he saw the Moorish influence. That's why he called it Moro.
And there was another, a woman who was already my friend, called Alicia Rios, who was a food performance artist. And she came to speak as well. And we were organised by somebody called Michael Joseph, who was a British travel writer, brilliant travel writer. He had organised us to come. And he had organised, also, somebody to come from his village where he had a house, where I was going to stay. And that man did a lot for me about Spain. He was called Manolo El Sereno. And he was the nightwatchman of the village. And also, he was there to gauge the height of the river. Measured it.
So, Alicia tricked us, because I was talking about all the influences that I saw, and I had told her... she told me, 'I don't know what to say'. And I said, 'You can talk about these medieval recipes that were Arab. And you can find those dishes here in Spain'. And she said, 'All right'. But when she came she tried to cheat us and to say, 'No, we were Roman dishes'. And so, she was saying we were basically Roman influence in our food. And so, she brought... with Manolo, she came, Manolo brought almost a whole olive tree to show. They brought olive trees and olive oil. And they brought the vineyards. She came with also piles of vines and saying, 'This is who Spain is. We are Roman by influence; we are not Arab by influence'.
To listen to more of Claudia Roden’s stories, go to the playlist: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVV0r6CmEsFxE7ofp5PbJrqZf8sttxHqJ
Claudia Roden (b. 1936) is an Egyptian-born British cookbook writer and cultural anthropologist of Sephardi/Mizrahi descent. She is best known as the author of Middle Eastern cookbooks including "A Book of Middle Eastern Food", "The New Book of Middle Eastern Food" and "The Book of Jewish Food". In this unique interview for Web of Stories, Claudia Roden is talking to her granddaughter Nelly Wolman about her life in food. [Listener: Nelly Wolman; date recorded: 2022]
TRANSCRIPT: I was invited... that is also one way of travelling, when I had... yes, I was researching Spain at the time. But I was asked by the Hay Festival, the British Hay Festival... they did a festival called The Hay Festival Alhambra. And the festival was in Alhambra. And it was a festival in English, about Spain. But it was in particular... the theme was about the Arab influence in Spain. And I was invited to come and speak about the Arab influence. And so did Samuel Clark from Moro. He said, 'I don't speak, I don't like speaking'. But he did speak fantastically, he talked about his restaurant, how he mixed, how he cooked Spanish food and how he saw the Moorish influence. That's why he called it Moro.
And there was another, a woman who was already my friend, called Alicia Rios, who was a food performance artist. And she came to speak as well. And we were organised by somebody called Michael Joseph, who was a British travel writer, brilliant travel writer. He had organised us to come. And he had organised, also, somebody to come from his village where he had a house, where I was going to stay. And that man did a lot for me about Spain. He was called Manolo El Sereno. And he was the nightwatchman of the village. And also, he was there to gauge the height of the river. Measured it.
So, Alicia tricked us, because I was talking about all the influences that I saw, and I had told her... she told me, 'I don't know what to say'. And I said, 'You can talk about these medieval recipes that were Arab. And you can find those dishes here in Spain'. And she said, 'All right'. But when she came she tried to cheat us and to say, 'No, we were Roman dishes'. And so, she was saying we were basically Roman influence in our food. And so, she brought... with Manolo, she came, Manolo brought almost a whole olive tree to show. They brought olive trees and olive oil. And they brought the vineyards. She came with also piles of vines and saying, 'This is who Spain is. We are Roman by influence; we are not Arab by influence'.
