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Apricots on the Nile: A Memoir with Recipes
Cairo, 1937: French-born Colette Rossant is waiting out World War II among her father's Egyptian-Jewish relatives. From the moment she arrives at her grandparents' belle époque mansion by the Nile, the five-year-old Colette finds companionship and comfort among the other "outsiders" in her home away from home -- the cooks and servants in the kitchen. The chef, Ahmet, lets Colette taste the ful ; she learns how to make sambusaks for her new friends; and she shops for semits and other treats in the Khan-al-Khalili market. Colette is beginning to understand how her family's culture is linked to the kitchen...and soon she will claim Egypt's food, landscape, and people as her own.
Apricots on the Nile is a loving testament to Colette's adopted homeland. With dozens of original recipes and family photographs, Colette's coming-of-age memoir is a splendid exploration of old Cairo in all its flavor, variety, and wide-eyed wonder.
Apricots on the Nile is a loving testament to Colette's adopted homeland. With dozens of original recipes and family photographs, Colette's coming-of-age memoir is a splendid exploration of old Cairo in all its flavor, variety, and wide-eyed wonder.
160 pages, Paperback
First published March 30, 1999
25 people are currently reading
1193 people want to read
About the author
Colette Rossant
15 books13 followersColette S. Palacci Rossant was born in Paris but spent most of her childhood in a mansion in the Garden City district of Cairo, Egypt, raised by her paternal grandparents and a host of aunts and cousins -- all of whom excelled in the kitchen. Her closest childhood friend was Ahmet, the house cook.
At the age of 15 she returned to Paris to finish her studies and lived with her maternal grandparents. In Paris, under the tutelage of her stepfather, she met numerous French chefs and learned about her French culinary heritage. Then at 22 she married American architect James Rossant and moved to New York.
In 1970, Colette started a cooking school for children that developed into a television show for PBS called Zee Cooking School, which also launched her first of seven cookbooks, Cooking with Colette (Scribners 1975) and two translations of Paul Bocuse. In 1979, she became the Underground Gourmet writer for New York Magazine and in 1982, the Food and Design editor of McCalls. In 1984 she started a new magazine called America Entertains for Time Warner. In 1993, she became a food columnist for the Daily News with a Wednesday column (now available online as "Ask Colette!". In addition, she has also been a culinary partner in two New York restaurants, Buddha Green and Dim Sum Go Go.
She has been nominated for a 1997 James Beard Award for Magazine Feature with Recipes, a 2000 IACP Cookbook Award for her book Memories of A Lost Egypt (originally published by Clarkson Potter in 1999 but now republished by Atria 2004), and a 2002 Thomas Cook Travel Book Award for its UK version Apricots On the Nile (Bloomsbury 2002).
At the age of 15 she returned to Paris to finish her studies and lived with her maternal grandparents. In Paris, under the tutelage of her stepfather, she met numerous French chefs and learned about her French culinary heritage. Then at 22 she married American architect James Rossant and moved to New York.
In 1970, Colette started a cooking school for children that developed into a television show for PBS called Zee Cooking School, which also launched her first of seven cookbooks, Cooking with Colette (Scribners 1975) and two translations of Paul Bocuse. In 1979, she became the Underground Gourmet writer for New York Magazine and in 1982, the Food and Design editor of McCalls. In 1984 she started a new magazine called America Entertains for Time Warner. In 1993, she became a food columnist for the Daily News with a Wednesday column (now available online as "Ask Colette!". In addition, she has also been a culinary partner in two New York restaurants, Buddha Green and Dim Sum Go Go.
She has been nominated for a 1997 James Beard Award for Magazine Feature with Recipes, a 2000 IACP Cookbook Award for her book Memories of A Lost Egypt (originally published by Clarkson Potter in 1999 but now republished by Atria 2004), and a 2002 Thomas Cook Travel Book Award for its UK version Apricots On the Nile (Bloomsbury 2002).
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 91 reviews
October 19, 2025
Rossant is a very interesting lady, with firm roots in the Middle East (Egypte, Lebanon) and the Western World (France, Spain, US). In these memoires she warmy describes her long stay in Cairo, with her grandparents, around the second world war. As a culinary journalist she gives ample room to the local kitchen. Didn't really entice me, though.
January 10, 2012
This book made me nostalgic. But mostly it made me hungry.
Apricots on the Nile combines the childhood rememberings of Colette Rossant with a series of her best and most beloved recipes. About half way through reading this I got up and made hummus, ful medames and falafel because reading about it and not being able to eat it was making me crazy. I will admit now though that I didn't take this book into the kitchen with me and follow any of Colette's recipes. I prefer to use my own tried and tested methods of throwing together these tasty dishes.
I love Middle Eastern food and regard mine as being pretty good - there was the much celebrated hummus-off of 2008 at my friends house, of which I was declared the winner. I at least am happy to eat it all once its ready anyway! A good few years ago, when I was supposed to be in University studying, I bunked off in a fairly epic fashion to hitch hike around the Middle East. Thanks to this bit of wayward wandering I've eaten ful medames on the corniche in Alexandria and had falafel from as far west as Beirut and as far east as the Iraqi border. I've eaten pickled Turnip in Tripoli, avoided sheeps head in the Golan heights and munched on lokum while watching a missile attack from a mountain top in Israel.
The recipes provided by Rossant are probably better than my own but the familiarity of my own methodology provides me with a sort of muscle-memory comfort in my now static adult life (like someone who has adjusted from culinary nomadic pastoralism to a sedentary existence), one which is still capable of evoking the town or even kitchen in which I learned to cook my version of the food in question. It is clear that Rossant draws the same kind of comfort from her own cooking.
The recipes available here are tenderly wrapped in vignette memories of a scattershot childhood which jumped from Cairo to Paris, from Alexandria to Switzerland and then finally to America. The places she describes are of another time, but the flavours are for now so stop reading and start eating!
Apricots on the Nile combines the childhood rememberings of Colette Rossant with a series of her best and most beloved recipes. About half way through reading this I got up and made hummus, ful medames and falafel because reading about it and not being able to eat it was making me crazy. I will admit now though that I didn't take this book into the kitchen with me and follow any of Colette's recipes. I prefer to use my own tried and tested methods of throwing together these tasty dishes.
I love Middle Eastern food and regard mine as being pretty good - there was the much celebrated hummus-off of 2008 at my friends house, of which I was declared the winner. I at least am happy to eat it all once its ready anyway! A good few years ago, when I was supposed to be in University studying, I bunked off in a fairly epic fashion to hitch hike around the Middle East. Thanks to this bit of wayward wandering I've eaten ful medames on the corniche in Alexandria and had falafel from as far west as Beirut and as far east as the Iraqi border. I've eaten pickled Turnip in Tripoli, avoided sheeps head in the Golan heights and munched on lokum while watching a missile attack from a mountain top in Israel.
The recipes provided by Rossant are probably better than my own but the familiarity of my own methodology provides me with a sort of muscle-memory comfort in my now static adult life (like someone who has adjusted from culinary nomadic pastoralism to a sedentary existence), one which is still capable of evoking the town or even kitchen in which I learned to cook my version of the food in question. It is clear that Rossant draws the same kind of comfort from her own cooking.
The recipes available here are tenderly wrapped in vignette memories of a scattershot childhood which jumped from Cairo to Paris, from Alexandria to Switzerland and then finally to America. The places she describes are of another time, but the flavours are for now so stop reading and start eating!
April 20, 2021
Even though I'm no 'foodie' I loved this book!!!
April 5, 2015
It's rather difficult to review a memoir.
If this was a "normal" novel, I would complain about the main character and some decisions or reactions I couldn't understand, but since it's not I'll switch to other things that I've noticed.
First off, I would have loved for this book to be structured following a timeline. As it isn't, and some experienced are revisited at later points in the book, I had a really hard time trying to figure out how old the author was during any given experience. Time spans were covered without mentioning it, so while I thought that the girl spend maybe a year at a convent, it turned out it had been actually four years, and I didn't notice that in the story telling at all.
I also missed descriptions of emotions. Despite the author saying what dishes she loved, or that she missed her grandmother, or whatnot, I was never able to build a real connection to her. Just to give an example, the young girl (by my count about 11 or 12 years old but that could be wrong) was given a dog as a present. Six days later she has to leave it to go to the convent, and she is only home on weekends, and - I would assume because it's never mentioned - not often in the same place as a dog. Some unspecified time later, her mother gives the dog away and she spends hours sulking and being angry. Since the dog never appeared after being mentioned as a present, I could not relate to this at all, in fact I wondered whether she'd ever seen the dog after she'd left for the convent.
Interestingly, the author also didn't describe food other than recounting what it was. I would have thought that the smells and tastes would leap right off the page, instead I had to go through my own memory to come up with an idea of what she was describing. If one has never eaten French and Middle Eastern food, that could be rather demotivating.
The recipes are generally interesting, although I - using standard sunflower oil and nothing special - would reduce almost every quantity of oil by 50%. (I'd go for the given quantities if I'd have better oil.)
To conclude this, I liked the idea of the book and will sure use the recipes, but I don't think I'll be reading it again just for the literary experience.
If this was a "normal" novel, I would complain about the main character and some decisions or reactions I couldn't understand, but since it's not I'll switch to other things that I've noticed.
First off, I would have loved for this book to be structured following a timeline. As it isn't, and some experienced are revisited at later points in the book, I had a really hard time trying to figure out how old the author was during any given experience. Time spans were covered without mentioning it, so while I thought that the girl spend maybe a year at a convent, it turned out it had been actually four years, and I didn't notice that in the story telling at all.
I also missed descriptions of emotions. Despite the author saying what dishes she loved, or that she missed her grandmother, or whatnot, I was never able to build a real connection to her. Just to give an example, the young girl (by my count about 11 or 12 years old but that could be wrong) was given a dog as a present. Six days later she has to leave it to go to the convent, and she is only home on weekends, and - I would assume because it's never mentioned - not often in the same place as a dog. Some unspecified time later, her mother gives the dog away and she spends hours sulking and being angry. Since the dog never appeared after being mentioned as a present, I could not relate to this at all, in fact I wondered whether she'd ever seen the dog after she'd left for the convent.
Interestingly, the author also didn't describe food other than recounting what it was. I would have thought that the smells and tastes would leap right off the page, instead I had to go through my own memory to come up with an idea of what she was describing. If one has never eaten French and Middle Eastern food, that could be rather demotivating.
The recipes are generally interesting, although I - using standard sunflower oil and nothing special - would reduce almost every quantity of oil by 50%. (I'd go for the given quantities if I'd have better oil.)
To conclude this, I liked the idea of the book and will sure use the recipes, but I don't think I'll be reading it again just for the literary experience.
January 4, 2025
reading this memoir felt like spending time with a beloved relative in the kitchen regaling you with stories of their childhood while preparing you the dishes that transport them back to that time. this memoir unfolds more like a collection of tales, not strictly chronological, and meandering at times like the familiar, winding pace of a grandmother’s tale.
reading this i could so vividly picture the winding streets and bustling markets of old Cairo, afternoons walking along the Nile with mango ice cream, and carefree summers in the crystal blue waters of Alexandria. this memoir felt particularly personal to me, as so many of the stories mirrored those i’ve heard from my own mother and grandmother about life in old Cairo.
i read most of this memoir while sitting in the living room with my parents, often turning to my mom to share familiar details: “mama, look! on her father’s side, the eldest son would travel to Turkey to marry, just like your family!” i’d remark on a place like Garden City, and my mom would smile as she set down mint tea beside me and say, “yes, Garden City. my grandfather had a house there.” when i asked her about the Khan al Khalili market she’d shudder at the memory of the meat market and, a few pages later, i laughed as i read Colette’s description of hiding in her grandmother’s skirts in that very same market.
Apricots on the Nile is a sensory, tender recollection of a bygone era that feels as familiar as a cherished family heirloom, connecting to one’s roots through stories and food.
reading this i could so vividly picture the winding streets and bustling markets of old Cairo, afternoons walking along the Nile with mango ice cream, and carefree summers in the crystal blue waters of Alexandria. this memoir felt particularly personal to me, as so many of the stories mirrored those i’ve heard from my own mother and grandmother about life in old Cairo.
i read most of this memoir while sitting in the living room with my parents, often turning to my mom to share familiar details: “mama, look! on her father’s side, the eldest son would travel to Turkey to marry, just like your family!” i’d remark on a place like Garden City, and my mom would smile as she set down mint tea beside me and say, “yes, Garden City. my grandfather had a house there.” when i asked her about the Khan al Khalili market she’d shudder at the memory of the meat market and, a few pages later, i laughed as i read Colette’s description of hiding in her grandmother’s skirts in that very same market.
Apricots on the Nile is a sensory, tender recollection of a bygone era that feels as familiar as a cherished family heirloom, connecting to one’s roots through stories and food.
July 3, 2016
A cute little book with nice recipes of the typical Egyptian food you still get today and some others with a French twist. The book is more a collection of little anecdotes than a fully flung story. Fairly shallow and superficial, but still worth reading for the feel-good factor. If you like food, this is a good choice. You can see and smell those kitchens in vivid detail.
June 2, 2013
Atmospheric nostalgic magical pure innocence wonderfully evocative - I love this book that I picked purely by chance because I was intrigued by the title. I have always had a fascination with Egypt and Cairo, there is a mystique that will never be fathomed because of cultural differences. I read this memoir many years ago and it has stayed with me in my soul. Colette transports the reader back to her childhood and the aromas and warmth and life around her, when staying with her grandmother.
I suppose it awakes my own memories of special times with my own beloved grandmother. It also makes me feel there is something inately good in people that is unwritten. This book is unique and I love it for that.
I suppose it awakes my own memories of special times with my own beloved grandmother. It also makes me feel there is something inately good in people that is unwritten. This book is unique and I love it for that.
September 17, 2018
Read this book with my partner as we both love food and it was absolutely fascinating. The author writes about her childhood in gypt and the food which reminds her of it in an enchating way that transports you straight into the Cairo suburbs of the 1940s. The recipes are accurate an plenty and there is a good deal of emotional content discussing the author's family relationships and her return to Egypt with her children which make this book, although less than 200 pages, absolutely jam-packed with interest.
June 21, 2020
This is such a wonderfully fascinating story, because it gives a glimpse in a lifestyle that doesn't exist anymore. I love books like that. It shows us the lifestyle of the rich European people in the 1930s/1940 dwelling in Mid-eastern or African countries living a life of luxury and socializing.
Also this book will make you smell wonderfull food and makes you hungry for food in the best way possible.
Also this book will make you smell wonderfull food and makes you hungry for food in the best way possible.
December 15, 2025
What a sad, uncomfortable read. I'm not sure why I read it. I think this title was on someone's list of best ethnic cookbooks. I generally enjoy memoirs written by cooks that include a recipe in each chapter.
I have Egyptian friends who have fed me Egyptian food: it's delicious! Sort of an amalgam of Mediterranean, Middle East, and African. Lots of cumin and cardamom. :: smacks lips :: So to say, I liked reading the recipes for hummus and baba ghanoush.
Alas, poor Colette. Her father died when Colette was eight, her mother periodically abandoned her by leaving her in Egypt with her grandparents. She ping-ponged between Egypt and France, between being Jewish or being Catholic (her mother converted). She was always the outsider who didn't belong.
It's no wonder she became a cook. In every house, the kitchen was the place of comfort, the cooks (Sudanese Ahmet and French Georgette) were the ones who showed an interest in this misfit of a girl.
"... the ambiguities of belonging to everyone and to no one."
I have Egyptian friends who have fed me Egyptian food: it's delicious! Sort of an amalgam of Mediterranean, Middle East, and African. Lots of cumin and cardamom. :: smacks lips :: So to say, I liked reading the recipes for hummus and baba ghanoush.
Alas, poor Colette. Her father died when Colette was eight, her mother periodically abandoned her by leaving her in Egypt with her grandparents. She ping-ponged between Egypt and France, between being Jewish or being Catholic (her mother converted). She was always the outsider who didn't belong.
It's no wonder she became a cook. In every house, the kitchen was the place of comfort, the cooks (Sudanese Ahmet and French Georgette) were the ones who showed an interest in this misfit of a girl.
"... the ambiguities of belonging to everyone and to no one."
April 20, 2021
I absolutely enjoyed this light memoir. It felt like I was warmly welcomed into someone's home and offered a rustic homecooked feast with an array of Egyptian and French delicacies as they tell me stories of their life. The memior reminded me of the tiny but beautiful details of life, the bickering and bargaining in the marketplace, crushing sun-dried mint, the moments of mischief around the house as a child. She also tells a tale of a Cairo that is immortal, with modernity rushing through at a great pace of course, but with many elements left unchanged, like Groppi the famous Swiss Sweetery and Cafe, Aboushakra Restaurant, the old Cairo Souks etc. There are points of her life that were saddening, but what I love is that she presented herself as unapologetically Colette, reminsing what makes life worth living, and that for her was the people that left a mark on her, her family and their quirks, and of course mouth-watering food.
October 23, 2009
Rossant's memoir is certainly mouthwatering, and it brings 1940's Cairo alive. However, it's a little on the light side - there are several family conflicts happening and it might have beeb better to explore them more fully. Still, Rossant's work is enjoyable and intriguing - looking forward to reading her first and third books.
October 31, 2019
Evocative and fascinating insight into 1940's Egyptian life and food. Tempted to try some of the recipies, but probably won't get round to it.
July 7, 2019
Fun book with lots of history, recipes and insight into a woman’s history.
Fun to read about things I had seen I Egypt and Cairo!
Can’t wait to try some of the recipes!
Fun to read about things I had seen I Egypt and Cairo!
Can’t wait to try some of the recipes!
November 7, 2023
Over eten praten is altijd een goed idee.
September 12, 2024
Simple but enjoyable memoir of Colette’s upbringing in Cairo, intertwined with stories of food, family, friendship, and identity. Considering it was written as a memoir, the childhood memories/stories are surprisingly vivid and capture the child-like imaginary.
I haven’t read stories dealing with French-Egyptian identities in the 1930s/40s, so that was interesting. I loved Colette’s relationships with the cooks, Ahmet and Georgette, and how she found comfort in the kitchen (and later how that was transmitted to her children).
I had hoped for a stronger thread or story between chapters to tie her life together. Another reviewer said it is hard to rate a memoir, and I agree; it is so personal and her story. Perhaps it is just that, while an enjoyable read, much of the story did not speak to me.
Nevertheless, good read.
I haven’t read stories dealing with French-Egyptian identities in the 1930s/40s, so that was interesting. I loved Colette’s relationships with the cooks, Ahmet and Georgette, and how she found comfort in the kitchen (and later how that was transmitted to her children).
I had hoped for a stronger thread or story between chapters to tie her life together. Another reviewer said it is hard to rate a memoir, and I agree; it is so personal and her story. Perhaps it is just that, while an enjoyable read, much of the story did not speak to me.
Nevertheless, good read.
August 14, 2020
The story is intriguing and felt like a movie. So much heartache and loss in the midst of all the chapters. However, as a book itself, it read like an essay for a college paper about events that happened, not necessarily a well rounded story of everything the author endured and wanted to portray. I wanted more depth, more memories, more creative ways to relay her experience. It was also confusing keeping up with what set of grandparents she was with and when. I wish the timeline had been done differently in the chapter layouts. Overall, it’s a story I’m glad I read because of the life the author endured, however it wasn’t the best memoir and food writing book I’ve read.
April 28, 2021
A pleasant read, but the author's habit of jumping around chronologically undercuts any emotional impact her stories might otherwise have. We learn, e.g., of her departure from Cairo, when she tells us she would end up never seeing her grandparents again, and then in the next chapter we're back on a summer vacation with the Cairo grandparents some years earlier. It makes it hard to track the chronology and places emphasis on the recipes/cooking stories - which I guess is where she wanted it to be, but I was hoping for something that was more of a memoir.
November 12, 2016
I didn't want to reach the end of the book, it has very mixed feelings of belonging, losing identities, mixed faiths, losing loved ones and a lot of soul searching to know who you are! Simply written, I related to everything written because I used to live in Cairo so it brought many good memories there though my Cairo was the very modern one not old Cairo ! I highly recommend to read, specially if you have any interest in the Middle Eastern food, in particular Egyptian!
July 8, 2024
Short easily read book with recipes. Set primarily in Egypt it recounts the life of a French Jewish Catholic Egyptian girl. Not that well written.
I’ve listed a few recipes to try.
Borrowed from the library
I’ve listed a few recipes to try.
Borrowed from the library
May 14, 2009
This is such a beautiful account of childhood spent growing up in Egypt and the incredible food and food rituals that accompanied.
June 3, 2012
Gorgeous book. A beautiful memoir of a extraordinary upbringing, with recipes to make your mouth water!
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December 21, 2024Colette Rossant's glittering childhood memoir of her French extended family life in Cairo is one of those stories this reader did not want to put down or finish. Utterly compelling, her memoir is a feast of family characters and recipes. Her wealthy family lived in the spacious Villa Palacci in Cairo's Garden City. "A neighbourhood of winding streets, with immense villas and lush gardens, designed for the nineteenth century well-to-do Egyptian and European Jewish merchants and foreign ambassadors." Even as a small child, Rossant loved being in the kitchen with her GGrandmamaMarguerite. Who sings in Arabic when kneading dough, and their cook Ahmet with whom Grandmaman shares power in the kitchen. The colours and flavours of the fruits, vegetables and spices, and the delicious cuisine emerging from the family kitchen, evoke an era when cooking and fine dining waweren art in the home. Rossant doesn't miss a single beautiful or poignant beat when packing her childhood saga into this exquisite slim volume.
April 11, 2020
Colette Rossant describes her life as a young child growing up mainly in the care of her grandparents in Egypt. She relates what it was like to shop in the markets; what the people were like and also the staff and relatives in the huge house her grandparents lived in. She tells of her distant relationship with her brother who was living in France most of the time and also her difficult connection with her mother who was quite often away. Then her life changes dramatically when her mother suddenly takes her off to live in France and all that entailed. What a beautifully written memoir especially with all the recipes for the dishes she wrote about.
December 25, 2021
I only read this because it was the slimest book on my shelf and I had a day left until I received my new books for Christmas. I thought its not my type of reading matter, but wow what a surprise, the biography was brilliant, very interesting but brief, the descriptions of the food left one feeling that you were stood in the kitchen watching the food being cooked and even the sense that one could smell the food. A little gem of a book absolutely loved it.
July 9, 2017
This is an evocative account of Rossant's childhood years in Egypt. We get a real sense of the place, of her extended family and their household, and above all, of the food. The narrative is interspersed with recipes, but these do not take over or intrude on the story - they do make you hungry though!
June 9, 2019
Possibly 1.5 stars. Very disjointed read. The memoir jumped back and forward. Was half way through the book and realised she had a brother (did I miss that at the start?) Recipes in the middle of the chapters was distracting - write them out at the end of each chapter. For a short book, it took ages to read as it was not engaging.
May 14, 2020
I got this book in an opportunity shop and it was on different cover. The size is quite small so I thought it could be one easy read. I wasn't wrong. The storytelling was fresh and enticing although there were some repeated plot over and over again, I enjoyed it. This memoir was a fresh air placed on the war era so it's not depressing :)
June 14, 2020
I think the book is one for those of us who have a foot in two cultures..some of the events and customs she describes are so familiar to me, though not exactly the same culture I am filled with a longing and a nostalgia of another life.. the book contains recipes which are also a joy, I made one and it was great!
July 21, 2021
not something i would typically go for however when my step father offered it to me and had explained the story behind it I quickly rather most scarily was immersed in her story. 4.5 stars. only because I'm vegetarian and the majority of these recipes embedded in there included some sort of meat product.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 91 reviews