Yotam Ottolenghi

Desert Island Discs

BBC

Society & Culture, Music Commentary, Music, Personal Journals

4.4 • 13.7K Ratings

🗓️ 18 November 2016

⏱️ 35 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Kirsty Young's castaway is the cookery writer and restaurateur Yotam Ottolenghi. His food mixes the flavours of the Middle East and the Mediterranean and has been credited with changing the way many eat and cook, fuelling the surge in popularity of cooking ingredients including wakame seaweed, orange blossom, pomegranate seeds and za'atar. Born to a German mother and an Italian father in Jerusalem, he grew up enjoying a wide range of culinary influences and he loved food from an early age. After completing a master's degree at Tel Aviv University, he enrolled in a six-month cookery course at Le Cordon Bleu school in London. While working as a pastry chef he met his future business partner, Sami Tamimi, a Palestinian also from Jerusalem, and they opened their first deli in London's Notting Hill in 2002. He has written a weekly food column for The Guardian since 2006 and has published five cookery books, as well as opening four more delis and a restaurant. Producer: Cathy Drysdale.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is the BBC.
0:02.0	Hello, I'm Kirstie Young.
0:05.0	Thank you for downloading this podcast of Desert Highland Disks from BBC Radio 4.
0:10.0	For rights reasons, the music choices are shorter than in the radio broadcast.
0:14.4	For more information about the program, please visit BBC.co. UK.
0:19.8	UK slash Radio 4. My castaway this week is the coquery writer and restaurateur Yotam Otelengi.
0:42.0	If there's Zatar spice mix and
0:43.9	pomegranate molasses in your kitchen cupboard, then you're already
0:46.9	familiar with his reputation as a culinary trendsetter. His dishes surprise and
0:51.9	comfort in equal measure. By mixing the tastes of the
0:55.4	Mediterranean Middle East with more staple British ingredients he has won legions of
0:59.5	devotees. His eateries are packed and each new book keenly anticipated.
1:04.4	Our current Prime Minister says she prefers his recipes to Delia's.
1:08.4	His background is as complex, varied and intriguing as his food.
1:12.3	He was born in Jerusalem to a German mother and
1:15.2	Italian father. His grandmother was a spy and he was headed for the life of a
1:21.1	frustrate academic when his obsession with the delicious matured from a hobby to a calling.
1:27.0	He says when you feed people you get an instantaneous reaction, a smile, a kind word, a delighted expression.
1:34.3	So welcome, Yotam Otelengi.
1:37.0	Your recipes are notable, not for being complex actually, they're not technically difficult to make,
1:41.6	but they do have often very long lists of
1:44.1	ingredients you know typically around about anything from 10 to 15 separate ingredients in
	...

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