Jerusalem

The authors of this book, Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi, grew up in the 1970s and 1980s in Jerusalem without knowing each other. Yotam lived in the Jewish quarter to the west of this ancient city, Sami in its Arab quarter to the east.

They met in London in 1999 and became business partners in the Ottolenghi company, which, among other things, operates restaurants and delicatessens. Their childhood experiences later served as inspiration for writing this book.

They adapted traditional recipes to suit the lifestyle and tastes of contemporary chefs and diners. The book is written as a tribute to the city where many cultures and also many cuisines from different parts of the world meet. It contains 120 recipes for preparing interesting dishes from vegetables, legumes and meat, as well as desserts, selected by the authors based on their taste preferences and cooking habits, as well as memories of how cooking was done in their extended families.

They did not try to document Jewish or Arab cuisine in the said city in detail, they were more interested in capturing their own experiences and using them in the current style of cooking.