New cookbook highlights recipes from Islamic countries

Anissa travelled through many Islamic countries and sampled the food everywhere that she went, enhancing her already vast knowledge about the spices, breads, meat, seafood and vegetable dishes cooked in the countries she covered. Photo: Anissa Helou

In many ways, calling a cookbook Feast: Food Of The Islamic World is rather unusual. Cookbooks are often clustered under cuisine types – Italian or Indian or Chinese or Persian, rather than by religion. And the reason for this is simple: sharing the same faith does not necessarily mean you share the same food.

But with her latest cookbook, author Anissa Helou set out with a firm idea in mind.