Cooking with Date Syrup: Forty-One Chefs and an Artist Create New and Classic Dishes with a Traditional Middle Eastern Ingredient
By Michael Rakowitz. Foreword by Claudia Roden. Text by Ella Shohat. Recipes by Yotam Ottolenghi, et al.
With recipes by 41 popular chefs and food writers such as Alice Waters, Yotam Ottolenghi and Marcus Samuelsson, this cookbook focuses on the many uses of date syrup
Date syrup has been central to Iraqi cooking and home life for centuries. In this unique book, a fusion of contemporary art and food, Chicago-based Iraqi-American artist Michael Rakowitz (born 1973) and 41 celebrated chefs present delicious dishes using this staple of Middle Eastern cuisine.
In early 2018, Rakowitz unveiled a winged bull sculpture on the Fourth Plinth in London’s Trafalgar Square, a life-size replica of a Mesopotamian lammasu made from thousands of date syrup cans. The artist’s choice of material was laden with historical significance: for decades, until the industry was decimated by war and disease, dates had been Iraq’s second biggest export after oil.
As his winged bull sat upon the Fourth Plinth, Rakowitz invited chefs from around the world to create new and classic recipes using date syrup. Chefs and food writers including Yotam Ottolenghi, Alice Waters, Claudia Roden, Reem Kassis, Prue Leith, Jason Hammel, Nuno Mendes, Thomasina Miers, Giorgio Locatelli and Marcus Samuelsson answered Rakowitz’s call, creating dozens of sweet and savory dishes with date syrup, now collected in this cookbook.
Easy step-by-step instructions and gorgeous photographs enable the reader to make these recipes at home. Ranging from the traditional to the innovative, with everything from simple brunch dishes, salads and sides to mouthwatering mains, cakes, desserts, drinks and condiments represented, the recipes in this volume showcase the richness of a humble ingredient. This special book will appeal to anyone who loves the cuisine of the Middle East and is interested in the politics of food in that troubled region.Chefs include: Sara Ahmad, Sam and Sam Clark (Moro, Morito), Linda Dangoor, Caroline Eden, Cameron Emirali (10 Greek Street), Eleanor Ford, Jason Hammel (Lula Café, Marisol), Stephen Harris (The Sportsman), Anissa Helou, Margot Henderson (Rochelle Canteen), Olia Hercules, Charlie Hibbert (Thyme), Anna Jones, Philip Juma (JUMA Kitchen), Reem Kassis, Asma Khan (Darjeeling Express), Florence Knight, Jeremy Lee (Quo Vadis), Prue Leith, Giorgio Locatelli, Nuno Mendes (Chiltern Firehouse), Thomasina Miers (Wahaca), Nawal Nasrallah, Russell Norman (Polpo), Yotam Ottolenghi (Ottolenghi, NOPI), Sarit Packer and Itamar Srulovich (Honey & Co), Michael Rakowitz, Yvonne Rakowitz, Brett Redman (Neptune, Jidori, Elliot's Café), Claudia Roden, Nasrin Rooghani, Marcus Samuelsson (Red Rooster, Aquavit), Niki Segnit, Rosie Sykes, Summer Thomas, Kitty Travers, Alice Waters (Chez Panisse) and Soli Zardosht (Zardosht).
Featured image is reproduced from 'A House with a Date Palm Will Never Starve.'
PRAISE AND REVIEWS
Elephant
Holly Black
Rakowitz’s ability to embody the flavour of a complex cultural heritage, the diaspora and its many intersections is what makes this book a joy to read, whether or not you plan to actually cook anything.
BBC
Cameron Laux
[A House with a Date Palm Will Never Starve] is a cookbook as artwork, a ‘culinary intervention’, and history and politics are also among its main ingredients.
Wallpaper*
Harriet Thorpe
Rakowitz’s date export project showed how the Iraqi date industry has suffered at the hands of US politics. Moving beyond art and into social activism like much of his work, the recipe book contributes to Rakowitz’s interest in creating awareness of this.
Frieze
Figgy Guyver
Dates have been central to Rakowitz’s artistic practice... [and he] hopes that his book will inspire a Western appetite for date syrup and, in so doing, create business for struggling plantations in Iraq.
Hyperallergic
Michael Rakowitz’s cookbook is one of the best resources we’ve added to our kitchen lately. The perfect inspiration for cooking in the time of quarantine, it contains recipes from 41 popular chefs and food writers including Yotam Ottolenghi, Alice Waters, Claudia Roden, Prue Leith, and Anissa Helou, as well as sketches from the artist himself to illustrate each chapter
Stained Page News
Andrea Gyorody
A beautiful cookbook dedicated to a single ingredient: date syrup. In 2018, Rakowitz reconstructed the Lamassu, a major work of antiquity destroyed by ISIS, in London’s Trafalgar Square. Created from more than 10,000 flattened cans of date syrup, the monumental sculpture pointed to the imperiled state of culture—artistic, culinary, and otherwise—in Rakowitz’s ancestral homeland, Iraq. A House with a Date Palm grew out of the Lamassu project, bringing together date syrup recipes from the artist’s mother, his friends, and a handful of chefs. The book is, as the artist puts it, “a way to taste the sculpture.” No sculpture has ever tasted so bittersweet.
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Saturday, February 8 from 11 AM – 2 PM, the Nasher Sculpture Center presents artist Michael Rakowitz, the 2020 Nasher Prize Laureate, as he cooks traditional Iraqi dishes and Texas BBQ at this lunchtime celebration at F.A.R.M. (Farmer's Assisting Returning Military), complete with live music and dancing. Rakowitz's new cookbook, A House with a Date Palm Will Never Starve, will be available for purchase. continue to blog
Saturday, January 11 from 3–5 PM, Jane Lombard Gallery presents the book launch for Michael Rakowitz's A House with a Date Palm Will Never Starve. The artist will be in conversation with author and NYU professor, Ella Shohat. Copies of the cookbook will be available for purchase at the gallery. continue to blog
Saturday, November 23 at 2:15, during Unwrapped: A Holiday Artist Showcase, MCA Chicago presents artist and A House with a Date Palm Will Never Starve author Michael Rakowitz and chef Jason Hammel demonstrating a recipe that Hammel contributed to the book. The demonstration will be followed by a book signing. continue to blog
Art and food meet social activism in Michael Rakowitz’s inspiring cookbook, A House with a Date Palm Will Never Starve: Cooking with Date Syrup, in which forty-one noted international chefs, restauranteurs and food writers contribute recipes featuring the traditional Middle Eastern ingredient that also plays a key role in Rakowitz’s artwork. “Food becomes very important in exile,” Claudia Roden writes. “Families hold on to their dishes for generations, long after they have cast off their traditional clothes, dropped their native language and stopped listening to their own forms of music. Michael’s family fled Iraq for the United States in 1947 as a result of riots and reprisals against Jews. He has used cooking as a way of celebrating the family’s origin and the harmony that once reigned between Jews and Muslims.” continue to blog
Featured photograph, of Sam and Sam Clark’s grilled quail with date syrup, is reproduced from A House with a Date Palm Will Never Starve, the new date-syrup-centric cookbook compiled by recent Nasher-prize-winner Michael Rakowitz. Though this book certainly has a critical/political component—an Iraqi-American Jew, Rakowitz is known for work that draws attention to issues surrounding cultural heritage, appropriation and the history of postcolonial displacement—it really is what it says it is: a cookbook, and a superb one at that. Other contributors include Yotam Ottolenghi, Alice Waters, Claudia Roden, Reem Kassis, Prue Leith, Jason Hammel, Nuno Mendes, Thomasina Miers, Giorgio Locatelli and Marcus Samuelsson, to name a few. “We never really cook anything the same twice,” the Clarks write. “You are only as ever as good as your last meal, and you have to really expose yourself and put yourself on the line. It is like a new performance each time. This simple quail recipe, adapted from a previous favorite in the restaurant, is improved by using one’s hand to devour it.” continue to blog
If you're looking for a different way to cook—not to mention, a different way to think—for the Jewish holidays and beyond this year, check out recent Nasher-prize-winning Jewish-Iraqi artist Michael Rakowitz's A House with a Date Palm Will Never Starve, a legit cookbook and a philosophical challenge collecting recipes by 41 international chefs, restauranteurs and food writers centered around one often-overlooked but politically pivotal ingredient: the humble date. A staple in Iraq, where Rakowitz's family emigrated from, as well as a focal point in Rakowitz's critically-acclaimed artwork, date syrup also happens to be a favorite ingredient of chefs like Yotam Ottolenghi, Marcus Samuelsson, Alice Waters and Claudia Roden, who all contribute killer recipes. As Rosh Hashonah is the holiday where Jews traditionally celebrate their hopes for a sweet new year, we're featuring Philip Juma's Kleicha, or date and cardamom cookies. continue to blog
FORMAT: Hbk, 6.5 x 8.75 in. / 240 pgs / 120 color / 11 b&w. LIST PRICE: U.S. $29.95 LIST PRICE: CANADA $39.95 ISBN: 9781908970497 PUBLISHER: Art / Books AVAILABLE: 8/20/2019 DISTRIBUTION: D.A.P. RETAILER DISC: TRADE PUBLISHING STATUS: Active AVAILABILITY: In stock TERRITORY: NA ONLY
A House with a Date Palm Will Never Starve Cooking with Date Syrup: Forty-One Chefs and an Artist Create New and Classic Dishes with a Traditional Middle Eastern Ingredient
Published by Art / Books. By Michael Rakowitz. Foreword by Claudia Roden. Text by Ella Shohat. Recipes by Yotam Ottolenghi, et al.
With recipes by 41 popular chefs and food writers such as Alice Waters, Yotam Ottolenghi and Marcus Samuelsson, this cookbook focuses on the many uses of date syrup
Date syrup has been central to Iraqi cooking and home life for centuries. In this unique book, a fusion of contemporary art and food, Chicago-based Iraqi-American artist Michael Rakowitz (born 1973) and 41 celebrated chefs present delicious dishes using this staple of Middle Eastern cuisine.
In early 2018, Rakowitz unveiled a winged bull sculpture on the Fourth Plinth in London’s Trafalgar Square, a life-size replica of a Mesopotamian lammasu made from thousands of date syrup cans. The artist’s choice of material was laden with historical significance: for decades, until the industry was decimated by war and disease, dates had been Iraq’s second biggest export after oil.
As his winged bull sat upon the Fourth Plinth, Rakowitz invited chefs from around the world to create new and classic recipes using date syrup. Chefs and food writers including Yotam Ottolenghi, Alice Waters, Claudia Roden, Reem Kassis, Prue Leith, Jason Hammel, Nuno Mendes, Thomasina Miers, Giorgio Locatelli and Marcus Samuelsson answered Rakowitz’s call, creating dozens of sweet and savory dishes with date syrup, now collected in this cookbook.
Easy step-by-step instructions and gorgeous photographs enable the reader to make these recipes at home. Ranging from the traditional to the innovative, with everything from simple brunch dishes, salads and sides to mouthwatering mains, cakes, desserts, drinks and condiments represented, the recipes in this volume showcase the richness of a humble ingredient. This special book will appeal to anyone who loves the cuisine of the Middle East and is interested in the politics of food in that troubled region.Chefs include: Sara Ahmad, Sam and Sam Clark (Moro, Morito), Linda Dangoor, Caroline Eden, Cameron Emirali (10 Greek Street), Eleanor Ford, Jason Hammel (Lula Café, Marisol), Stephen Harris (The Sportsman), Anissa Helou, Margot Henderson (Rochelle Canteen), Olia Hercules, Charlie Hibbert (Thyme), Anna Jones, Philip Juma (JUMA Kitchen), Reem Kassis, Asma Khan (Darjeeling Express), Florence Knight, Jeremy Lee (Quo Vadis), Prue Leith, Giorgio Locatelli, Nuno Mendes (Chiltern Firehouse), Thomasina Miers (Wahaca), Nawal Nasrallah, Russell Norman (Polpo), Yotam Ottolenghi (Ottolenghi, NOPI), Sarit Packer and Itamar Srulovich (Honey & Co), Michael Rakowitz, Yvonne Rakowitz, Brett Redman (Neptune, Jidori, Elliot's Café), Claudia Roden, Nasrin Rooghani, Marcus Samuelsson (Red Rooster, Aquavit), Niki Segnit, Rosie Sykes, Summer Thomas, Kitty Travers, Alice Waters (Chez Panisse) and Soli Zardosht (Zardosht).
