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One thing I've watched this week on iplayer are the 3 episodes of Nigel Slater's Middle East - where he's visited Lebanon, Turkey, and Iran, and seen both commercial and domestic cooking in each country. He comes across as a bit of an enthusiastic geography teacher type of person, but his joy in meeting people and trying new foods feels genuine.
A fair bit of typical middle eastern food (olives, hummus, chickpeas) leaves me a bit cold, but I found this very interesting television anyway; not least because he doesn't just go and visit traditional farmers and suchlike, but he also asks them about their way of life, the good and the bad, and the impact of politics and industrialisation. I remember the farmer who says "oh, we used to just pick za'atar, but then after the 2006 Israel-Lebanon war there were too many landmines, so now I farm it", and the woman who (after extolling the virtues of her farming life) candidly admits that she hopes her children do something else. And some of the food did look pretty exciting :)
A fair bit of typical middle eastern food (olives, hummus, chickpeas) leaves me a bit cold, but I found this very interesting television anyway; not least because he doesn't just go and visit traditional farmers and suchlike, but he also asks them about their way of life, the good and the bad, and the impact of politics and industrialisation. I remember the farmer who says "oh, we used to just pick za'atar, but then after the 2006 Israel-Lebanon war there were too many landmines, so now I farm it", and the woman who (after extolling the virtues of her farming life) candidly admits that she hopes her children do something else. And some of the food did look pretty exciting :)
(no subject)