Egyptian Cookbook Is a Finalist for 2026 Gourmand Awards

When Suzanne Zeidy and Rawah Badrawi first tried to find an international publisher for a book about Egyptian food, they kept hearing the same thing: readers simply didn't see Egypt as a culinary destination. Now, their 420-page answer to that assumption, Egypt: Recipes and Stories from an Ancient Land, has been named a finalist in the 32nd Gourmand Awards 2026, in the C19 Africa – Published Outside Africa in English category.

Published by Nourish Books, the book brings together more than 150 recipes from 14 Egyptian cities and towns, combining food photography, illustrations and stories that trace the history and people behind each dish. The authors spent three years travelling across the country, meeting home cooks and communities whose recipes had often been passed down orally, never formally recorded. As Zeidy put it, “None of these recipes are written. No one gives me anything written. They have to demonstrate it. I go home. I write it down. I test it.”

That process turned the cookbook into something bigger than a collection of recipes. In Minya, the team spent hours with four women making bataw, a local bread, documenting the work and the camaraderie behind it. In St Catherine’s, they explored Bedouin food traditions shaped by ancient mountain gardens, while Cairo’s chapter brought together heirloom recipes from families with different cultural backgrounds. Each dish is presented through the person and place it comes from, rather than as one definitive version of Egyptian cuisine.

The book was built partly in response to the idea that Egyptian food had little international appeal. “People would say, ‘Egypt isn’t known for its food.’ Full stop,” Badrawi recalled. The authors refused to accept that verdict, eventually submitting 120 more pages than originally commissioned, with another 200 recipes left outside the final book. Their ambition was to document a culinary heritage that had been overlooked, and to show how much of it remains to be explored.

Winners will be announced at a ceremony planned for the final ten days of May 2027. For Zeidy, the work of documenting Egyptian food is far from finished. “You can never stop writing about Egypt,” she said. “It’s endless.”