I remember going in a building to visit some friends, and suddenly there was this smell that came under the door of one of the flats. I just thought oh, this a smell of mulukhiyah, garlic and coriander frying in olive oil. And I just couldn’t resist knocking at the door saying, ‘are you from Egypt?’ And they were so glad that they said come and eat with us.
It’s amazing how, like music, a smell and a taste can conjure up a place -even a whole civilisation- in a very powerful way.

Claudia Roden
cookbook writer and cultural anthropologist