Saraban: A chef's journey through Persia Hardcover – 1 Nov. 2010

Frankly after reading this book I can't see any point in anyone writing a Persian cookbook ever again!The recipes are easy to follow, and though modern, are rooted firmly in traditional Persian cooking. As an Iranian cook used to the traditional flavours, I love the new take. The photos and travelogue provide a colourful and beautiful picture of Iran around 2010. The book itself is beautifully produced and would grace any coffee table. The only problem for me is that this book is so beautiful that I don't want to ruin it by using it in the kitchen! I tend to leave it in the next room and look at the recipes there.

Beautifully photographed .Lovely descriptions of Isfahan Yazd Shiraz and numerous others.I was happy to find near the end of the book instructions on how to make homemade yoghurt using a thermos flask.I must say it was the best yoghurt I have ever made.

All copies of wonderful book in very good condition

Greg Malouf is synonymous with great middle eastern inspired recipes and his wife Lucy is a great travel writer. This latest book is more like a travelogue/coffee table book. The quality is beautiful, the recipes work and it reads very well as a travelogue. All in all a great gift for yourself or someone you like who loves good food.

Beautifully presented achievable recipes. The collection of photos are a wonder in their own right. Lovely background history - a book to take to bed and gorge upon!

This is a most beautifully presented book both in terms of the recipes and the stunning photographs, which makes it one to pick up and browse over with pleasure every so often, as well as being one to treasure. I'm not much of a cook, but I've been to Persia and I adored the food, so I am going to try out the recipes!

Beautifully produced travel cookbook

Following on from their earlier  Saha  and  Turquoise , Greg and Lucy Malouf turn their attentions to Iran. In the same vein as those earlier books, it is mostly a travelogue and photograph album, and almost secondarily it seems a recipe book. 'Turquoise' I thought had too many photos of old blokes sitting around smoking tabs and kids mucking around in grubby back streets of Istanbul. 'Saha' was a bit better in that respect as the photographs were generally more food related and added to the 'food atmosphere'. This new book falls somewhere between those two stools, but having said that, this is probably a prime contender for the most visually stunning cookbook I have seen, with a riot of colour and patterns depicted in the country's art and architecture.As to the recipes themselves, there are plenty of classics such as shirin polow, zereshk polow (here with rose petals), morasa polow (jewelled rice, here sadly somewhat understated compared to other cookbooks) and a version of duck fesenjan. However there's also a reasonable selection of items I haven't come across before despite having a sizeable collection of cookbooks of Persian and Middle Eastern cooking, from simple street food such as grilled corn on the cob but enlivened with sumaq and lime zest and juice, to koofteh Tabrizi, giant meatballs stuffed with fruit and nuts. I can't wait to have a go at the cardamom and pistachio fudge which undoubtedly tastes as amazing as it looks in the photograph (albeit in the photo it also contains rose petals which are not mentioned in the text - don't you just hate it when they do that in cookbooks?).Would I recommend it? Well yes and no. As a lover of Middle Eastern food in general and Iranian food in particular, I can count myself content to include this in my collection. If you are happy to have essentially a coffee table book, fine. I'm not sure a book like this is something you would want to let anywhere near the kitchen lest it get splattered with your pomegranate molasses. If you want something more practical and potentially expendable, then for starters I would suggest  The Legendary Cuisine of Persia  or  A Taste of Persia  instead.