Claudia Roden

Photograph: Jason Lowe

Claudia Roden was born in Cairo of a Jewish family. The publication of Claudia Roden's first book on Middle Eastern Food in 1968 revolutionised Western attitudes to the cuisines of the Middle East and she has gone on to write about the food of the Mediterranean, of Italy, and also Jewish food.

In all Claudia has published ten books, including the award winning classic, The Book of Jewish Food, and has won no fewer than six Glenfiddich awards for her writing.

Her latest book ARABESQUE: A TASTE OF MOROCCO, TURKEY AND LEBANON (Michael Joseph, 2005) won the Andre Simon Award for the Best Cook Book of the Year as well as the Glenfiddich Food Book Award.

She presented the BBC TV series CLAUDIA RODEN'S MEDITERRANEAN COOKERY, which involved seven countries. Her book THE FOOD OF ITALY - REGION BY REGION is based on the column she wrote for the Sunday Times Magazine and has been most influential on Britain where many fashionable Italian restaurants use her recipes.

Claudia has also been awarded the most prestigious gastronomic award in Italy, The Premio Orio Vergani, The Versailles Award for achievement in France and the International Prince Claus Award for Culture.

She is currently working on a book of Spanish food.

**Praise for Claudia Roden

'Claudia Roden is no more a simple cookbook writer than Marcel Proust was a bisuit baker. She is, rather, memorialist, historian, ethnogrpaher, anthropologist, essayist, poet ... ' Simon Schama

'Roden's great gift is to conjure up not just a cuisine but the culture from which it springs' Nigella Lawson

'Claudia Roden's writing has the fascination of her conversation. Her books are treasure-houses of information and mines of literary pleasures' Observer

First published by Grub Street Press in 2005

Originally published in 1981, by Penguin, as Picnic this revised and expanded edition is a celebration of the tradition of preparing and savoring meals in the open. It reveals a world of simply prepared and delicious foods and stimulates the imagination with tales from far and near in Claudia Roden's elegant, discursive style.

It offers the conventional and the exotic: from the street food of the Middle East and Mediterranean, the festivals of the high grassy plains of Mexico to the English traditions of picnicing in parks, at Glyndebourne and shooting-lunches on the moors. This is a book for any season and any climate. It is a book to cook from and a book to read and the re-issue of this classic will be welcomed by all lovers of Claudia Roden's writings.