Writer and presenter Claudia Roden heads to Chipping Norton Literary Festival this Sunday

Ask any chef about their favourite cookery writer and they always haul a dog-eared copy of Claudia Roden off their bookshelves. Her secret? She hunts high and low for original recipes, usually handed down from generation to generation, which in turn are then recycled by chefs trying to come up with something new.

So does she mind the inadvertent plagiarism? “I know chefs approve of what I do because they still come out of their kitchens, ask me to sign their books and say ‘thank goodness for you’ which is a great feeling, so I don’t mind.”

Considering recipes were all her family had when they came here as refugees in the 1950s, it is generous of her to relinquish them at all. “There was no other entertainment in Egypt so people made their own. Visiting each other, talking and eating was what you did, and recipes are what we gave to each other,” she explains.

“There isn’t a great eating out culture in Egypt, which is why people always complain about the cuisine when they go there,” she laughs. “But for us it’s all about home cooking and food because in the Muslim world women didn’t go out — their husbands would go to a cafe and then return for a homecooked meal.”

Brought up in the melting pot of bourgeois Cairo, Claudia moved here from Paris (finishing school for Cairenes) and her first job in London was working for Alitalia. “I earned £7 a week but could travel if there were any free seats so would go to Italy most weekends and roam.”

Following the 1956 Suez Crisis, however, President Nasser began expelling Jews and foreigners, so her parents followed their daughter to London and never went back. So why choose England over say Italy or Paris? “I had two brothers who went to school in England and we had a British passport because I had a Syrian mother. But it was still a massive culture shock when we arrived, and a big surprise,” she says diplomatically, “even though we were very pleased to be there and very lucky”, she adds quickly.

Keen to recreate the environment they’d grown up in, their house in Golders Green was soon full of people eating, drinking and talking again, a refuge, a place of familiarity in this brave new world of grey meat and two veg.

“Home was just a smaller version of our house in Egypt. They just recreated it,” Claudia says. “But my children and grandchildren do not talk very much, sometimes my son will just say ‘yes, yes yes’,” she says shaking her head sadly.

Little wonder then that Claudia made a life for herself in food, but it wasn’t until she got married herself that she began penning her beloved recipes, the resulting 1968 A Book of Middle Eastern Food, still being in print 46 years later, an astonishing accomplishment in these days of faddish food and celebrity chefs.

“I had my children early, three by the age of 26, I couldn’t wait to get started and when they were growing up I was really, really happy at home with them. We had a good time together. But I still scribbled away. It was something I could do alone when they were at school or in bed. I didn’t start travelling in a big way until I was in my 40s.”

Having married businessman Paul Roden in 1959, the couple split 15 years later. “I had lots of friends,” she smiles, “but then all my children left home together, in the same month, to go to university and art school and I couldn’t face staying at home so I decided to leave when they did.

“Until then my children’s lives always came first and when you’re not needed any more, you are pushed into doing your own thing. So learning to live for myself and being in charge of myself is what I like about life.”
Leaving meant venturing out into a still unknown world: “It was a massive deal because I’d led a very sheltered life. In Egypt we never went anywhere alone, or on a bus or a train, always with family. My brother escorted me when I went to Paris, and then I became a mother. And yet there I was, on my own totally, for the first time and it was exciting,” she remembers.

Her first big trip was courtesy of The Sunday Times, who sent Claudia to Italy.

“Oh My God, it was daunting and scary but very thrilling. I have no sense of direction, you see, and had to drive. I’m scared of cars, and had to get to the airport, pick up my key and then just get in the car and go, but it was very liberating.”

Still writing and with numerous books and TV shows under her belt, Claudia will be discussing her latest incarnation The Food of Italy at the upcoming Chipping Norton Literary Festival.

“When I wrote the original in 1990 things like ricotta were really pioneering and you had to go to Soho for it. But so many ingredients are much easier to come by now, like chestnuts and squid ink, which make cooking a lot easier. Tastes have changed as well so people don’t want to eat the same things, so I’ve taken my frog recipes out.” Did you say frog? “Yes frog legs in wine (Rane in guazzetto), were all the rage for a while, but not any more.”

Everywhere she goes Claudia still collects recipes, from anyone and everyone.

“Yes, it works well, engages you and forms a bond. I was on a train in Italy recently and the entire carriage was telling me how to make a certain dish.”
Still working as hard as ever and undaunted, if encumbered, by a recent foot operat-ion, Claudia is off to Genoa when we speak. “I can’t miss this festival in Italy, it’s about the history of food so I really want to go,” she smiles.

Chipping Norton is next, where Claudia will be in conversation with Henrietta Green. “She’s an old friend, which helps hugely, but I’m a chatterbox anyway, so she’ll have to slap me down. And besides, Josceline Dimbleby and Madhur Jaffrey are still going strong. I’m only 77,” she says bursting out laughing. “So I’m not worried about age.”

Chipping Norton Literary Festival runs from April 24–27. For more information, visit chiplitfest.com