Caroline Eden

“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

Caroline Eden, author of Samarkand, is not only an award-winning journalist and travel writer, but with her new book, Black Sea, she reveals herself to be a charming storyteller, inspired explorer and a collector of unusual recipes.

In Black Sea, Caroline has charted a journey between three great cities – Odessa, built on a dream by Catherine the Great, through Istanbul, the fulcrum balancing Europe and Asia and on to tough, stoic, lyrical Trabzon.  From the Jewish table of Odessa, 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.

Meticulously researched, and like no other piece of travel writing, Black Sea is a biography
of a region, its people and its recipes. Packed with vivid photography throughout, it documents
unprecedented meetings with remarkable individuals and features recipes inspired by meals,
meetings and literature. The recipes – such as Odessan Coleslaw, Mark Twain’s Debauched
Ice Cream, Potemkin Cocktail, Sacred Onion Soup and Black Sea Börek – take the reader on
Caroline’s journey.

“Essentially, my aim in writing this was to produce a transporting and multi-sensory piece of travel writing – one that you can read, see and eat.” – Caroline Eden