Claudia Roden was brought up in Cairo. She finished her education in Paris and later studied art in London. Starting as a painter she was drawn to the subject of food partly through a desire to evoke a lost heritage - one of the pleasures of a happy life in Egypt. With her bestselling classic, A Book of Middle Eastern Food, first published in 1968, Roden revolutionized Western attitudes to the cuisine of the Middle East. Her intensely personal approach and her passionate appreciation of the dishes delighted readers, while she introduced them to a new world of foods, both exotic and wholesome. The book received great critical acclaim. Mrs Roden continued to write about food with a special interest in the social and historical background of cooking. Then came the BBC television series, Mediterranean Cookery with Claudia Roden and the accompanying book entitled Claudia Roden's Mediterranean Cookery. In 1992, she won the Glenfiddich Trophy, the top prize in the Glenfiddich Awards.