Salmagundi: Salads from the Middle East and Beyond

If we were left to our own devices and didn’t have to cater to anyone but ourselves, we could quite happily subsist on salads day in, day out. Not the limp lettuce bought in plastic pots, of course, but big bowls filled with leaves, pulses, nuts, vegetables, fruit and anything else handy in myriad combinations. So we were particularly pleased to get a copy of Salmagundi; Salads From The Middle East And Beyond – the third book from Sally Butcher, who runs Peckham’s Persian cornershop Persepolis. Salmagundi is actually a seventeenth century English word that describes a salad with many component parts – a sort of Jacobean Cobb salad perhaps. And there are salads here from around the world – far beyond the Levant that the title implies. Yes there are plenty of moreish Middle Eastern treats here from Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Egypt and so on, but Butcher scours the globe from Cambodia to California and everywhere in between bringing together the ultimate, unadulterated versions of classics alongside more exotic combinations too, such as the unctuous and utterly delicious Warm Aubergine with Garlic Yogurt and Caramelised Walnuts. This book is a great compendium of ideas for salad addicts but it’s really a very entertaining read too. Butcher is funny and incredibly inquisitive so the pages are littered with either helpful or humourous asides. And while nothing in this book feels like a diet-type salad, the very concept of dishes that for the most part utilise grains, vegetables and leaves means that you could easily use this book as inspiration for a carb-free diet. Not that you’d feel deprived for one second.