Richard Tapper is Professor of Anthropology at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. Sami Zubaida is a Reader in Sociology at Birkbeck College, University of London.

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• Introduction, Richard Tapper and Sami Zubaida - food production in the Middle East, Tony Allen, national, communal and global dimensions in Middle Eastern food cultures, Sami Zubaida. Part 1 Cuisines, dishes, ingredients: from the Caucasus to the roof of the world - a culinary adventure, Bert Fragner; social reality and culinary fiction - the perspective of cookbooks from Iran and Central Asia, Bert Fragner; the "meyhane" or "McDonald's? changes in eating habits and the evolution of fast food in Istanbul, Holly Chase; the taste for layered bread among the nomadic Turks and the central Asian origins of baklava, Charles Perry; rice in the culinary cultures of the Middle East, Sami Zubaida; "al-kishk" - the past and the present of a complex culinary practice, Francoise Aubaile-Sallenave. Part 2 Food and the social order: the revival of traditional cooking in modern Arabic cookbooks, Peter Heine; Jewish food in the Middle East, Claudia Roden; food and gender in a Yemeni community, Ianthe Maclagan; you are what you cook - cuisine and class in Mecca, Mai Yamani; eating habits and cultural boundaries in Northern Iran, Christian Bromberger. Part 3 The language of food: beyond taste -the complements of colour and smell in the mediaeval Arab culinary tradition, Manuela Marin; blood, wine and water - social and symbolic aspects of drinks and drinking in the Islamic Middle East, Richard Tapper; of leaven foods - Ramadan in Morocco, Abdelhai Diouri; food as a semiotic code in Arabic literature, Sabry Hafez.