Caroline Eden is a writer and literary critic. She's the author of several books, including Samarkand (2016), Black Sea (2018) and Red Sands (2020). She has been awarded both the Art of Eating Prize and the André Simon Award and Red Sands was a 'book of the year' for the FT, Sunday Times and The New Yorker.
Eden writes on books, food, travel and culture for the Guardian, Times Literary Supplement and Financial Times, among many other publications. She has a weekly newsletter called Journeys Beyond Borders which goes out every Wednesday, with extra dispatches for paid subscribers. You can join here.
Eden writes on books, food, travel and culture for the Guardian, Times Literary Supplement and Financial Times, among many other publications. She has a weekly newsletter called Journeys Beyond Borders which goes out every Wednesday, with extra dispatches for paid subscribers. You can join here.
Her new book, celebrating the importance of curiosity and of feeling at home in the world, is an honest, and at times heartbreaking, memoir with the smell, taste and preparation of food at its heart. From late night baking as a route back to Ukraine to capturing the beauty of Uzbek porcelain, and from the troublesome nature of food and art in Poland to the magic of cloudberries. Cold Kitchen was published by Bloomsbury in May 2024 and you can order it here. The US release date is January 2025 and pre-orders will open for that territory soon.
Praise for Cold Kitchen - a "best summer read" for the Financial Times and The Observer
"a hugely accomplished work that manages to be wildly enjoyable, often moving and always thoughtful." ― Olivia Potts, The Spectator
"A beguiling book overlaid with a tinge of melancholy for a world that is so often in a state of violent upheaval. Anyone who has ever felt the pangs of homesickness will understand how cooking can transport you. ― Mail on Sunday
"A unique memoir to savour by an explorer of our time. Eden's cultural and culinary map takes us into a wonderfully rich world" ― Lyse Doucet
"Powerfully evocative and beautifully written Cold Kitchen will warm your heart. Curl up with this book and let it gently take you places near and far; you will find a sense of home, the hearthstone of our shared humanity" ― Elif Shafak
"A quiet and beautiful book, a unique blend of history, place, love, food and belonging. Eden writes so sincerely and so intimately you miss her as soon as you've read the last page" ― Diana Henry
"One of the most brilliant travel writers of her generation, Caroline Eden is masterful at evoking the flavours and emotions of her encounters while on the road in eastern Europe and Central Asia. In Cold Kitchen, she weaves together the contemporary and the historical, the mundane and the magical, in a heartfelt memoir on the meanings of both distant adventures and the comforts of home." ― Fuchsia Dunlop
"Into her Edinburgh kitchen, Caroline Eden tenderly gathers the ingredients and memories from a hundred journeys in Turkey, the Baltics, the Caucasus and Central Asia. A wonderful feast of a book by a multi-talented author" ― Philip Marsden
Books: Bookshop.org
Instagram: @edentravels