Book review: Pomegranates & Artichokes by Saghar Setareh

Saghar Setareh is an Iranian food writer, photographer and blogger who moved from Iran to Italy as a student aged 22

Her book Pomegranates & Artichokes: Recipes and Memories of a Journey from Iran to Italy, documents her observations of ingredients and recipes that can be traced across the Middle East and Mediterranean.

Take the aubergine, for example. The vegetable was originally bought to Italy by Arabs in the Middle Ages and many beloved Italian dishes now centre around it. It would be amiss for her not to include a recipe for an Italian parmigiana, and there is further background about the vegetable and the centuries where aubergines were actually considered vulgar and vile. Luckily, for our modern-day palates, this changed in the 19th century when charred aubergine met with sweet tomato and creamy mozzarella to create this iconic dish.

The humble aubergine is, of course, also loved across the Levant. From the ever-popular baba ghanoush, which blends aubergines with garlic, tahini and lemon, to the Turkish dish of imam bayildi, where it’s stuffed with onion in tomato sauce and fried, and the Iranian dish of mirza ghasemi, where they are again charred before cooking with tomatoes and eggs.

The book is divided into three sections – Iran, In Between (recipes from the Levant and Eastern Mediterranean), and Italy, with thoughtful additions such as a stocklist.

Cakes and confectionary, such as a simple cake with date frosting or a milky, silky tricolour pudding join the likes of a classic tiramisu, while a recipe for sharbat, the typical Iranian cold, sweet drink, shows how comprehensive this book is, despite covering such a spread of geography in less than 300 pages.

Illustrated with her own photography, Pomegranates & Artichokes is a lovingly curated book about migrations, ingredients, recipes and stories, as well as the people who make those journeys and their dishes. Setareh’s personal journey has taken her from cookingIranian food to comfort her while living abroad to the food of her new home in Italy.

Pomegranates & Artichokes: Recipes and Memories of a Journey from Iran to Italy by Saghar Setareh (Murdoch Books, £26)