Claudia Roden was born and brought up in Cairo. She went to school in Paris for three years and came to London to study art at St. Martin's. Her parents left Egypt in 1956 after the Suez crisis and as a result of the war with Israel, and the family settled in London. She has three grown-up children and three grandchildren.
Claudia started writing about Middle Eastern food in the 1960s as a way of recovering a lost heritage as well as delicious foods. She has worked as a 'gastronomic foreign correspondent' for several newspapers and run cookery courses at her home. This book is based on the 'Taste of Italy' articles which were featured in theSunday Times. She has been awarded many prestigious prizes including four Glenfidditch Awards and several other international prizes. Her other books includeCoffee,Picnic,A Book of Middle Eastern Food,Mediterranean Cookery(the subject of her BBC TV series), The Book of Jewish Food - An Odyssey from Samarkand and Vilna to the Present Dayand Claudia Roden'sInvitation to Mediterranean Cooking - 150 Vegetarian and Seafood Recipes. Claudia Roden lives in London.