OP: The Food of Oman

Andrews McMeel Publishing, Kansas City, 2015. Hardcover. Fine/Near Fine. First printing.

Many Americans might be hard-pressed to point to Oman on a map, but, once identified, it requires very little imagination to conjure the many culinary influences available to this country perfectly situated on the eastern coast of the Arabian peninsula.

With the Middle East to the north, Asia to the east, Africa to the south, and the Maghreb and Mediterranean to the west, Oman is seemingly in the eye of a cultural hurricane, trade routes spinning around and through it for literal millenia.

The resulting culinary history is exhilarating and offers something for, seemingly, every taste. Until Bahari was published in 2024, American food writer Felicia Campbell’s The Food of Oman (2015) was the only book we’d ever seen in English on the country's cuisine. Though now sadly out-of-print and relatively scarce, it does a tremendous job. We’d easily call out all 100+ dishes, but it is with great restraint that we’ll only mention a few:

• Bedu samak mashwi—Bedouin whole charred fish with lime, served with rice or bread
• Mishakik—grilled beef skewers with spicy tamarind sauce
• Lahm kalia—slow-cooked caramelized beef (or lamb, or camel) with an array of warming and piquant spices, served with aseeda (sweet dumplings) or date chapati
• Shuwa—pit-roasted lamb wrapped in banana leaves
• Mchicha wa nazi—Zanzibari coconut creamed spinach
• Luqaimat—fried dough balls drenched in cardamom-saffron syrup

This copy is a first printing, nearly As New, save for wear to the dust jacket, most notably on the fore edge, which bears some scuffing. Handsome photographs by Ariana Lindquist.