Claudia Roden


Claudia Roden is a British cookbook writer and cultural anthropologist. 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 Arabesque—Sumptuous Food from Morocco, Turkey and Lebanon.

Early life

Roden was born in 1936 in Cairo, Egypt, the daughter of Cesar Elie Douek and his wife Nelly Sassoon. Her parents were both from Syrian-Jewish merchant families, and she grew up in Zamalek, Cairo, with two brothers, the surgeon Ellis Douek, and Zaki Douek. She was Egypt's national backstroke swimming champion at the age of 15.
In 1953, she went to a boarding school in Paris, and then to London to study at Saint Martin's School of Art.

Career

Besides her numerous cookery volumes, Roden has also worked as a food writer and a cooking show presenter for the BBC.
She is co-chair with Paul Levy of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery. She is an Honorary Fellow of the School of Oriental and African Studies of the University of London.

Personal life

In 1959, she married Paul Roden, a clothes importer, and they separated after 15 years.
They had three children.
She has lived in Hampstead Garden Suburb since the early 1970s.

Activities and awards

Roden is a Patron of London-based HIV charity The Food Chain. In 1999 Roden was honoured with a Prince Claus Award from the Prince Claus Fund, an international culture and development organisation based in Amsterdam.
In 1997, Roden was awarded the National Jewish Book Award in the Sephardic and Ashkenazic Culture and Customs category for The Book of Jewish Food