Table Tales: The Global Nomad Cuisine of Abu Dhabi
Alia Yunis
Hanan Sayed Worrell
2018, Rizzoli, 978-8-89181-793-8, $75 hb.
Since the discovery of oil in Abu Dhabi in 1958, thousands of expats have come to the city for work. Some stay only for a few months and some stay for decades, as their families expand to include children and grandchildren who also consider Abu Dhabi home. This gorgeously photographed book is the story of these multigenerational and multinational expats and their connections to Abu Dhabi through food. Worrell, who has lived in the emirate with her family for 25 years, frames the recipes around portraits of Emiratis and expats who share both re-creations of their favorite family dishes as well as life stories in Abu Dhabi over the decades. The common experience of having lived in many other places before settling in Abu Dhabi reveals itself in the diverse and often overlapping communities in the Emirate built through dinners with friends, colleagues and neighbors, as well as in the eclectic mixture of ingredients brought in from around the world.