A House with a Date Palm Will Never Starve: Cooking with Date Syrup: Forty Chefs and an Artist Creat

An absolute treasure! The culinary evocation of an ignored - almost lost - history and threatened cultural legacy stretching to Assyrian times through to the war-worn Iraq of today. Artist-provocateur Michael Rakowitz has fused into this collection of recipes using date syrup from diasporic Iraqis and talented chefs the capacity for continuity, survival and revival. Rakowitz is the visionary behind the 4th plinth Lamassu statue on Trafalgar Square (erected early 2018), created in part by cladding the human-faced winged bull with thousands of date syrup tins from Iraq, raising uncomfortable questions about modern warfare, displacement, diaspora, looting, appropriation, and all the devastation wrought by military conflict. After oil, Iraq's dates were once its second most lucrative export, doubtless vastly diminsihed by the loss of the greater majority of its date palms. Rakowitz and the creators of his recipe collection are commended for enabling us to somehow subversively 'taste a statue'.

Love this book, some very interesting recipes Michael Rakowitz’s art work is inspirational.