Black Sea

Winner of the Art of Eating Prize 2020

Winner of the Guild of Food Writers' Best Food Book Award 2019

Winner of the Edward Stanford Travel Food and Drink Book Award 2019

Winner of the John Avery Award at the André Simon Food and Drink Book Awards for 2018

Shortlisted for the James Beard International Cookbook Award

‘The next best thing to actually travelling with Caroline Eden – a warm, erudite and greedy guide – is to read her. This is my kind of book.’ – Diana Henry

‘Eden’s blazing talent and unabashedly greedy curiosity will have you strapped in beside her’ - Christine Muhlke, The New York Times

'The food in Black Sea is wonderful, but it’s Eden’s prose that really elevates this book to the extraordinary... I can’t remember any cookbook that’s drawn me in quite like this.’ – Helen Rosner, Art of Eating judge

This is the tale of a journey between three great cities – Odesa, Ukraine’s celebrated port city, through Istanbul, the fulcrum balancing Europe and Asia and on to tough, stoic, lyrical Trabzon.

With a nose for a good recipe and an ear for an extraordinary story, Caroline Eden travels from Odesa to Bessarabia, Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey’s Black Sea region, exploring interconnecting culinary cultures. From the Jewish table of Odesa, to meeting the last fisherwoman of Bulgaria and charting the legacies of the White Russian émigrés in Istanbul, Caroline gives readers a unique insight into a part of the world that is both shaded by darkness and illuminated by light.

In this updated edition of the book, Caroline reflects on the events of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine and the subsequent impact of the war on the people of the wider region. How Odesa, defiant against shelling and blackouts, has gained UNESCO protection while in Istanbul, over lunch with a Bosphorus ship-spotter, she finds out about the role of the Black Sea in the war and how Russians are smuggling stolen grain from Ukraine.

Meticulously researched and documenting unprecedented meetings with remarkable individuals, Black Sea is like no other piece of travel writing. Packed with rich photography and sumptuous food, this biography of a region, its people and its recipes truly breaks new ground.