ANDYou don’t have to have any of Claudia Roden’s books in your kitchen – you don’t even have to know her name – to feel their influence. If you’ve ever opened a jar of Rose Harissa, sat at a plate of grilled eggplant with yogurt and tahini, or sprinkled pomegranate seeds over a bulgur wheat salad, it’s the 84-year-old food writer whom you must thank. There is hardly a recipe from Yotam Ottolenghi that does not owe her in some form a debt.
“My most copied recipes are probably Baba Ghanoush and Hummus,” Roden tells me from her north London kitchen before checking herself. “Well, not mine, but I was the first person to bring you here.”
In fact, it was. Her book
