Memories of a Lost Egypt: A Memoir with Recipes [Illustrated] [Hardcover]

Colette Rossant (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 30, 1999

"Matthew's presence transports me back to the Cairo kitchen, where I am tasting the ful that Ahmet, the cook, prepared and helping Grandmaman Marguerite mix dough while she sings songs to me in Arabic. Her family pride was profoundly linked to the kitchen, so when I attempted to make sambousek once for my friends
and did not follow her recipe for this cheese-filled golden dough faithfully, she was outraged. "This recipe is at least
hundreds of years old. You do not change it!" she shouted. I see her standing at the stove, a diminutive woman
usually dressed in black. Her thick, curly,  henna-dyed hair was pulled upward in a large chignon; there was always
a lock of hair escaping that she would try, again and again and without success, to push back into her chignon.  My daughter Marianne, who looks like her, has the same gesture of trying to push a lock of curly dark hair behind her ear. I smile as I watch the curl fall down in front of her eyes."

From Memories of a Lost Egypt

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Colette Rossant's privileged childhood was marked by tragedy and dislocation. Her father, the Egyptian descendant of Sephardic Jews who eventually settled in Cairo, met her French mother in Paris, where he was the European buyer for his father's department store. He died in 1939 when Colette was only 7, and her mother then left her in Cairo with her grandparents. She returned three years later to enroll Colette in a convent school in the hope that her daughter would convert to Catholicism, much to the chagrin of her in-laws. Although Rossant's memoir of these wrenching events is often sad, it's leavened by a wonderfully sensuous evocation of Middle Eastern life in the 1930s and '40s, including recipes for the savory foods that nurtured her childhood: semits (soft pretzels with a sesame seed crust), ful medamas (a fava bean stew), and sambousek (a golden, cheese-filled pastry). The warmth of her grandparents and their Arab servants softened the impact of her thorny relationship with an often capricious mother, whose sharp edges Rossant does not sentimentalize, even in the chapter about her dying days. Returning to Cairo in 1997, the author realizes that, despite the absence of her mother during those crucial girlhood years, she had been blessed by "a city and a family that nurtured me and gave me a strong identity." --Wendy Smith

From Publishers Weekly

Reading this slim volume is like spending an afternoon in the kitchen with a beloved older relative. What could be better than hearing tales of an exotic past while preparing the foods that are at the core of the shared memories? Rossant, a cookbook author and columnist whose article on Egyptian cuisine in Saveur formed the basis of this poignant memoir, certainly had a colorful young life. Born in 1932 to affluent secular Jews, at age five she was taken from her maternal grandparents' Parisian home to live with her father's extended family in Cairo. Her father died soon afterward, but Rossant stayed safely with her grandparents, the Palaccis, throughout the war. Meanwhile, her singularly indifferent mother traveled about, sending her resentful "little pagan" to a Cairo convent boarding school after the war and then back to dreary postliberation Paris for matriculation in a lyc?e. Fittingly for someone who grew up to be a cookbook writer, Rossant's happiest memories from her childhood in Egypt center on food, from the baguette dipped in garlic and oil that she preferred to the French petit pain au chocolat, to the Ful Medamas (fava beans cooked with pickled turnips, onions and hot peppers) and Boiled Blue Crabs with Ginger Scallion Sauce prepared by the Palaccis' Arab cook, to the Tomato Salad (made with tarragon, chives, lemon juice and olive oil) that won her future husband's heart. Rossant indeed offers a tasty treat for both body and soul.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 160 pages
• Publisher: Clarkson Potter; 1st edition (March 30, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0609601504
• ISBN-13: 978-0609601501
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.1 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #160,794 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #20 in Books > Cookbooks, Food & Wine > Regional & International > African

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A welcome blend of memories and good food, January 1, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Memories of a Lost Egypt: A Memoir with Recipes (Hardcover)

If you are like me, you enjoy reading cookbooks that are more than just compilations of recipes but also include evocative text that recreates another time and place. "Memories of a Lost Egypt" is such a book. The author's vivid and touching reminiscences of her childhood often center on food and her relationships with her family's cooks, and she skillfully interweaves her narrative with recipes for the delicious dishes she savored and learned to prepare.

Another Middle Eastern cookbook that I treasure is Sonia Uvezian's "Recipes and Remembrances from an Eastern Mediterranean Kitchen: A Culinary Journey through Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan." It too evokes a strong sense of time and place, and it is filled with outstanding recipes.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful and disappointing at the same time, September 14, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Memories of a Lost Egypt: A Memoir with Recipes (Hardcover)

While I found the writing to be wonderfully evocative of a particular time and place, I couldn't overcome my annoyance with the author. I was consistently frustrated with the fact that she didn't seem to realize just how privileged her upbringing was. Unfortunately, I couldn't get past this initial impression. In the book's defense, however, the recipies were mouth-wateringly wonderful.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Cute Memoir of a Book, June 28, 2002

By 

Michael J. Armijo (Marina Del Rey, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Memories of a Lost Egypt: A Memoir with Recipes (Hardcover)

I found this book at a landmark bookstore on Picadilly Street in London, England. It was titled APRICOTS ON THE NILE, A Memoir With Recipes. I just realized via a search on Amazon that the title is different here in the USA. I like the English title better. This book is a 'must get' for anyone who cooks. There will be some recipes that sound "ugh", but many are mouth watering. Personally, I liked the Tomato Salad(s), Roast Chicken on a Bed of Leeks, Meatballs with Apricot Sauce, Angel Hair Pasta with Nuts, Vegetable Salad, Traditional Hummus, Christmas Four-Meat Pate, Lentil Soup, and Roast Leg of Lamb. The book is more than just recipes, though. You will be taken on a cultural trip through Cairo, Egypt and Paris, France through the eyes of a little girl & a woman who has not lost sight of her ancestral heritage. It's a quick and enjoyable read where you'll be thrust into memories of a wonderful childhood...try it, you'll like it. Smiles :)