Editors Reads Verdict
More than a cookbook — a beautifully written cultural document. The recipes are exceptional, the photography stunning, and the story of two chefs from opposite sides of a divided city making food together is profoundly moving. One of the great cookbooks of the century.
What We Loved
- Recipes that genuinely expand your repertoire — not variations on familiar dishes
- Extraordinary photography and beautiful physical book production
- The cultural and personal narratives elevate this far above a standard cookbook
- Vegetable-forward cooking that is genuinely exciting, not virtuous compromise
Minor Drawbacks
- Some ingredients require specialist shops in certain markets
- More complex than a beginner's cookbook — aimed at enthusiastic home cooks
- High price point (worth it)
Key Takeaways
- → Middle Eastern cooking is one of the world's great vegetable cuisines
- → Tahini, sumac, pomegranate molasses, za'atar: a small number of flavour anchors unlock a whole cuisine
- → Generous quantities of herbs, garlic, lemon, and olive oil are the foundation
- → Texture contrast — creamy with crunchy, warm with cool — is central to this cuisine
- → Sharing food across cultural divides is a profound human act
| Author | Yotam Ottolenghi & Sami Tamimi |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Ten Speed Press |
| Pages | 320 |
| Published | October 16, 2012 |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Cooking, Food, Culture |
| Difficulty | Intermediate |
| Best For | Adventurous home cooks who want to move beyond familiar cuisines. Equally valuable as a coffee-table read and as a working kitchen reference. The perfect gift for a food lover. |
A Cookbook About More Than Cooking
Yotam Ottolenghi was born in West Jerusalem; his co-author Sami Tamimi in East Jerusalem. One is Jewish Israeli; one is Palestinian Muslim. They met in London, became close friends, and found that despite growing up a few miles apart in one of the world’s most divided cities, they shared a profound love for the same food.
Jerusalem is the cookbook they wrote together — and it is one of the great cookbooks of the 21st century.
The Cuisine
Jerusalem sits at the crossroads of multiple culinary traditions: Jewish, Arab, Armenian, Christian, Ottoman. The city’s food is a palimpsest of these overlapping cultures — and the result is a cuisine of extraordinary richness.
Ottolenghi and Tamimi navigate the politics of what belongs to which tradition carefully and wisely, acknowledging that many dishes are claimed by multiple communities and that this plurality is the food’s strength, not a problem to be resolved.
The dominant flavours of the book:
- Tahini — sesame paste that appears in dozens of forms, from dips to dressings to desserts
- Sumac — the tart, berry-like spice that does what lemon does but differently
- Za’atar — the herb-and-sesame mix that seasons everything from eggs to flatbreads
- Pomegranate molasses — sour-sweet depth that transforms marinades and dressings
- Harissa — the North African chili paste that adds heat and complexity
- Preserved lemon — intensity and brightness that no fresh citrus can replicate
The Recipes
This is emphatically not a book of timid, compromise dishes. The recipes are bold, complex, and genuinely exciting:
Cauliflower with pomegranate and pine nuts — a dish that transforms an underrated vegetable into something festive and extraordinary.
Roasted chicken with clementines and arak — the combination of anise liqueur, citrus, and honey creates a sauce that is unlike anything in Western cooking.
Hummus — yes, another hummus recipe; this is the definitive one: the proportions, the technique, the quality of chickpeas, the finishing oil. Revelatory if you’ve only eaten shop-bought.
Knafeh — the famous cheese pastry soaked in syrup; a masterpiece of texture contrast.
Beyond the Recipes
What makes Jerusalem exceptional among cookbooks is the depth of the cultural and personal material surrounding the recipes. Ottolenghi and Tamimi write about their childhoods, their families, the neighbourhoods they grew up in, the religious rituals that structured the eating year. The book is partly memoir, partly cultural history, and entirely an act of love for a city that is simultaneously one of the world’s most beautiful and most contested.
In this, the book quietly makes an argument: that two people from opposite sides of one of the world’s sharpest divides can find in the same food a source of profound connection.
Our rating: 4.7/5 — One of the finest cookbooks ever written. Buy it for the recipes; treasure it for the story.
Ready to Read Jerusalem?
Check the current price on Amazon.
Check Price on Amazon (paid link)Prices and availability are subject to change. See Amazon for current price.
Review last updated: