To listen to more of Claudia Roden’s stories, go to the playlist:    • Claudia Roden (Food writer)  

Claudia Roden (b. 1936) is an Egyptian-born British cookbook writer and cultural anthropologist of Sephardi/Mizrahi descent. She is best known as the author of Middle Eastern cookbooks including "A Book of Middle Eastern Food", "The New Book of Middle Eastern Food" and "The Book of Jewish Food". In this unique interview for Web of Stories, Claudia Roden is talking to her granddaughter Nelly Wolman about her life in food. [Listener: Nelly Wolman; date recorded: 2022]

TRANSCRIPT: In Egypt, when I was 14 already, and a bit younger even, a lot of the older people... I also have to say, when I was in Egypt, most of my life was, apart from the school and going to the cinema once a week with the whole family, I was always with the whole family. I never went out alone. I never took a bus or a tram. And I went mainly to the club. And the club had Olympic swimming pool. And we trained. I say we, because we were... several of us were big swimmers. And I was a swimmer, and I swam in championships.