The Kitchen: Summer 2021

The COOKING-themed issue of ArabLit Quarterly takes readers on a gustatory journey from the 10th century through the 21st, featuring cookbooks, guides to table manners and health, short stories, poetry, essays, and a graphic novel recipe for mahshi by the fantastically talented Sohila Khaled. As always, work ranges over eras, and includes a selection of Andalusi physician Abu Marwan ‘Abd al-Malik Ibn Zuhr’s (d. 1162 CE) Kitab al-Aghdhiya; selections from a guide to dining in company from 16th-century Damascus, translated by Hacı Osman Gündüz (Ozzy); a look at Egyptian history through the lens of cookbooks and home economics by Salma Serry; a journey through (not) making waraq enab by Yasmine Shamma; popular food fiction by Rehab Bassam; poetry on kitchen battles by Rym Jalil; and the essays that came out of the "Taste of Letters" workshop in Cairo.