Photographer, writer, traveller, cook, geographer, culinary anthropologist: Naomi Duguid is all this, and more. True, her books contain approachable recipes that have won awards and accolades from food-first organisations, like the James Beard Foundation and the International Association of Culinary Professionals. But they also offer sensitive insights into the lives of people far from her native Canada. Why do they prepare, cook and eat the foods they do? How does the way they live influence the way they eat, and vice versa? And all illustrated with her photographs, at once both informative and atmospheric.

Though the people and food she chronicles are from far away, she has a knack of preserving their distinctness while making us all neighbours.

A cheesemaker farmer in rural southern Georgia, not far from the Turkish and Armenian borders.

Notes

1. Naomi Duguid’s website is at naomiduguid.com, but you’re much more likely to find her on Instagram or Twitter.
2. You can find Burma: River of Flavors and Taste of Persia at bookshop.org and getting them there gives independent bookshops (and me) a hand.
3. The transcript is here.
4. Cover photo by Randy Risling/Toronto Star

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