Yotam Ottolenghi has observed that when he moved to the UK from Jerusalem in the 1990s, making hummus at home was seen as the “height of exoticism”. Someone who was ahead of the curve on this, as on so much else, was the food writer Marlena Spieler, who has died aged 74.
Marlena’s groundbreaking 1985 cookbook Hot and Spicy (published in the UK in 1991) included a host of Mediterranean recipes that could easily come from one of Ottolenghi’s books, including spiced versions of hummus and baba ganoush as well as other Middle Eastern delights such as zhoug (a fiery Yemenite green sauce seasoned with green chillies), and shakshuka, that staple of the modern brunch scene.
