Nile Nightshade

A cultural and culinary history of modern Egypt through the nations beloved tomato. By the end of the twentieth century, the tomatoindigenous to the Americashad become Egypts top horticultural crop and a staple of Egyptian cuisine. The tomato brought together domestic consumers, cookbook readers, and home cooks through a shared culinary culture that sometimes transcended differences of class, region, gender, and ethnicityand sometimes reinforced them. In Nile Nightshade, Anny Gaul shows how Egyptians embrace of the tomato and the emergence of Egypts modern national identity were both driven by the modernization of the countrys food system. Drawing from cookbooks, archival materials, oral histories, and vernacular culture, Gaul follows this commonplace food into the realms of domestic policy and labor through the hands of Egypts overwhelmingly female home cooks. As they wrote recipes and cooked meals, these women forged key aspects of public culture that defined how Egyptians recognized themselves and one another as Egyptian.