Hi, r/AskHistorians. I’m an assistant professor of Arabic Studies at the University of Maryland, College Park, and my book Nile Nightshade: An Egyptian Culinary History of the Tomato was published last October by the University of California Press. The book traces how the tomato, originally domesticated in what's now Mexico, became a popular staple in Egyptian cooking & Egypt's most significant horticultural crop.
How did tomatoes become so important so quickly? How were they used by cookbook authors and educators to articulate visions of what "Egyptianness" should look and taste like? How were they deployed in contestations or refusals of state power? What can tomatoes tell us about the political significance of culinary knowledge and domestic labor, particularly of the actors who don't appear in conventional archives? How can we conceptualize food and cuisine beyond the confines of nationalism? These are the questions at the heart of the book. I'm looking forward to answering your questions about the book and Egyptian food history, so AMA!
For more about the book, you can find interviews, excerpts, reviews, and other related material (including a list of the archives and libraries I used to do the research) here, and related recipes on my food blog here.
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