Babylonian Cuisine: Chaldean Cookbook from the Middle East

New York: Vantage Press. Fine in Near Fine dust jacket. 1981. Second Edition. Hardcover. 0533046289 . Cover is black with gold lettering on spine. Pages are clean and tight, no marks, stains or other signs of use in the kitchen. Illustrated with dozens of b/w photos of various recipe items, the author, and a b/w map of Iraq [ancient Babylonia]. The Chaldeans were a Roman Catholic, ethnic minority in predominantly Muslim Iraq. The book also gives a background on the Chaldean culture; including the fact that Chaldean is a separate language from Arabic. Most of them left Iraq, and many of them settled in the metro Detroit area, which now has the largest Chaldean population in the world. The recipes definitely have a very mid-eastern flair to them, but are also tempered with the Catholic background, so a bit different than the typical mid-eastern/Muslim cookbooks. For many years was the neighbor of a cousin of the author, and remember when this book came out. All of that family were amazing cooks--never turned down a dinner invitation from my neighbor! She and her cousin, the author, used the same family recipes. I believe this was the first, and possibly still the only, Chaldean cookbook published in America. Extremely scarce title. ; B&W Photographs; 5 3/4 x 8 1/2; 213 pages; Cover has slight bumping and shelfwear. DJ has shelfwear, sunning. .