Nawal Nasrallah facts for kids
Nawal Nasrallah is an amazing writer and food historian from Iraq who now lives in the United States. She is famous for her cookbook about Iraqi food, called Delights from the Garden of Eden. She also translates old Arabic cookbooks, like Annals of the Caliphs’ Kitchens, which is a book from the 900s about cooking in the Abbasid Caliphate. Nawal has won many awards for her writing and translations.
Life and Career
Nawal Nasrallah was born in Baghdad, a big city in Iraq. She went to the University of Baghdad and earned a special degree in English literature. Her studies looked at how an old Arabic story influenced a famous English novel.
Later, Nawal taught English at universities in Baghdad and Mosul. In 1990, she moved to a new home in Bloomington, Indiana, in the United States.
While living in Iraq, she loved to cook and bake. She even taught herself how to make American dishes!
In 2003, Nawal published her Iraqi cookbook, Delights from the Garden of Eden. This was during a time when many people in America were interested in Iraq. She shared that cooking and food memories helped her feel calm and happy, especially when things were tough.
In 2015, Nawal worked with a professor from Harvard University. They created recipes based on what people ate in ancient Mesopotamia thousands of years ago! They even made a special dinner for scholars at Harvard's Semitic Museum. In 2016, she also taught a class about Iraqi cooking in Italy.
Nawal has also translated recipes for perfumes, spices, and oils from old books. In her book Treasure Trove of Benefits and Variety at the Table, she translated over 750 recipes from the 1300s in Egypt. She also explained how people back then thought food could help you heal and feel better.
Cooking and Recipes
Nawal Nasrallah's cookbook, Delights from the Garden of Eden, came out in 2003. It has more than 400 recipes! In 2007, it won an award called the Gourmand World Cookbook Award. The book doesn't just have recipes; it also shares interesting facts about Iraqi food history and stories about the different parts of Iraq where the recipes come from.
Nawal said she wrote the cookbook to help people learn more about Iraqi food and its history. She wanted to show a positive side of Iraq, especially when the news often showed only negative things.
A shorter version of her cookbook was released in 2013. Saveur magazine, a popular food magazine, even called it one of the top ten best cookbooks of that year!
Nawal often talks about food and history in interviews on YouTube. She also has a blog where she shares old Arabic recipes. In 2023, The New York Times newspaper even featured her recipe for "Medieval Hummus," which was from the 1200s!
Scholarly Works
Nawal Nasrallah is a real expert on old Arab cooking and the history of cookbooks. She also knows a lot about modern Iraqi food and the ancient foods of Mesopotamia.
In 2007, Nawal translated the oldest Arabic cookbook that we still have today. It's called Kitab al-tabikh, which means "The Book of Cooking." It was written by a person known as Ibn Sayyar al-Warraq in the 900s. Her translation brought this amazing historical book to English readers. In 2008, she received an honorable mention award for this work. This old cookbook has recipes that its writer collected from more than twenty other cookbooks! Scholars use this book to learn not only what rich people ate, but also how food was cooked and served in the Islamic world long ago.
In 2011, Nawal published a book called Dates: A Global History. This book explores everything about dates! It talks about their history, how healthy they are, and their importance in culture and symbols in the Middle East and beyond. The book also shares cool legends about dates, like how the ancient Greeks connected the date palm to the mythical bird, the phoenix. This is why the date palm's scientific name is Phoenix dactylifera!
In 2017, Nawal translated another old cookbook from the 1300s in Egypt. The book's Arabic name is Kanz al-fawāʾid fī tanwīʿ al-mawāʾid, and her English version is called Treasure Trove of Benefits and Variety at the Table. In this book, she even included ways to make some of these 700-year-old recipes in modern kitchens!
More recently, in 2019, Nawal Nasrallah helped with a book about ancient Mesopotamian writings at Yale University. She even found recipes written on old clay tablets called cuneiform!
In 2021, Nawal translated another important cookbook from the 1200s. This book, Best of Delectable Foods and Dishes from al-Andalus and al-Maghrib, was nominated for a big award in 2022 called the Sheikh Zayed Book Award.
