A House with a Date Palm Will Never Starve - (Hardcover)

About the Book

Prominent Iraqi-American artist-provocateur Rakowitz invites 40 acclaimed chefs and food writers to create mouthwatering savory and sweet dishes using date syrup. Date syrup has been central to Iraqi cooking and home life for centuries.

Book Synopsis

With recipes by 41 popular chefs and food writers such as Alice Waters, Yotam Ottolenghi and Marcus Samuelsson, this cookbook focuses on the many uses of date syrup

Date syrup has been central to Iraqi cooking and home life for centuries. In this unique book, a fusion of contemporary art and food, Chicago-based Iraqi-American artist Michael Rakowitz (born 1973) and 41 celebrated chefs present delicious dishes using this staple of Middle Eastern cuisine.

In early 2018, Rakowitz unveiled a winged bull sculpture on the Fourth Plinth in London's Trafalgar Square, a life-size replica of a Mesopotamian lammasu made from thousands of date syrup cans. The artist's choice of material was laden with historical significance: for decades, until the industry was decimated by war and disease, dates had been Iraq's second biggest export after oil.

As his winged bull sat upon the Fourth Plinth, Rakowitz invited chefs from around the world to create new and classic recipes using date syrup. Chefs and food writers including Yotam Ottolenghi, Alice Waters, Claudia Roden, Reem Kassis, Prue Leith, Jason Hammel, Nuno Mendes, Thomasina Miers, Giorgio Locatelli and Marcus Samuelsson answered Rakowitz's call, creating dozens of sweet and savory dishes with date syrup, now collected in this cookbook.

Easy step-by-step instructions and gorgeous photographs enable the reader to make these recipes at home. Ranging from the traditional to the innovative, with everything from simple brunch dishes, salads and sides to mouthwatering mains, cakes, desserts, drinks and condiments represented, the recipes in this volume showcase the richness of a humble ingredient. This special book will appeal to anyone who loves the cuisine of the Middle East and is interested in the politics of food in that troubled region.Chefs include: Sara Ahmad, Sam and Sam Clark (Moro, Morito), Linda Dangoor, Caroline Eden, Cameron Emirali (10 Greek Street), Eleanor Ford, Jason Hammel (Lula Café, Marisol), Stephen Harris (The Sportsman), Anissa Helou, Margot Henderson (Rochelle Canteen), Olia Hercules, Charlie Hibbert (Thyme), Anna Jones, Philip Juma (JUMA Kitchen), Reem Kassis, Asma Khan (Darjeeling Express), Florence Knight, Jeremy Lee (Quo Vadis), Prue Leith, Giorgio Locatelli, Nuno Mendes (Chiltern Firehouse), Thomasina Miers (Wahaca), Nawal Nasrallah, Russell Norman (Polpo), Yotam Ottolenghi (Ottolenghi, NOPI), Sarit Packer and Itamar Srulovich (Honey & Co), Michael Rakowitz, Yvonne Rakowitz, Brett Redman (Neptune, Jidori, Elliot's Café), Claudia Roden, Nasrin Rooghani, Marcus Samuelsson (Red Rooster, Aquavit), Niki Segnit, Rosie Sykes, Summer Thomas, Kitty Travers, Alice Waters (Chez Panisse) and Soli Zardosht (Zardosht).

Review Quotes

A beautiful cookbook dedicated to a single ingredient: date syrup. In 2018, Rakowitz reconstructed the Lamassu, a major work of antiquity destroyed by ISIS, in London's Trafalgar Square. Created from more than 10,000 flattened cans of date syrup, the monumental sculpture pointed to the imperiled state of culture--artistic, culinary, and otherwise--in Rakowitz's ancestral homeland, Iraq. A House with a Date Palm grew out of the Lamassu project, bringing together date syrup recipes from the artist's mother, his friends, and a handful of chefs. The book is, as the artist puts it, "a way to taste the sculpture." No sculpture has ever tasted so bittersweet.--Andrea Gyorody "Stained Page News"

Michael Rakowitz's cookbook is one of the best resources we've added to our kitchen lately. The perfect inspiration for cooking in the time of quarantine, it contains recipes from 41 popular chefs and food writers including Yotam Ottolenghi, Alice Waters, Claudia Roden, Prue Leith, and Anissa Helou, as well as sketches from the artist himself to illustrate each chapter-- "Hyperallergic"

[A House with a Date Palm Will Never Starve] is a cookbook as artwork, a 'culinary intervention', and history and politics are also among its main ingredients.--Cameron Laux "BBC"

Dates have been central to Rakowitz's artistic practice... [and he] hopes that his book will inspire a Western appetite for date syrup and, in so doing, create business for struggling plantations in Iraq.--Figgy Guyver "Frieze"

Rakowitz's ability to embody the flavour of a complex cultural heritage, the diaspora and its many intersections is what makes this book a joy to read, whether or not you plan to actually cook anything.--Holly Black "Elephant"

Rakowitz's date export project showed how the Iraqi date industry has suffered at the hands of US politics. Moving beyond art and into social activism like much of his work, the recipe book contributes to Rakowitz's interest in creating awareness of this.--Harriet Thorpe "Wallpaper*"