The best cookbooks offer more than recipes—they tell the stories of the people behind them, their heritage, and their struggles. That’s exactly what makes The Oldest Kitchen in the World by Matay de Mayee such a treasure.
Cookbook author Matay DeMayee is pictured with his mother Smuni. | Courtesy of Emma Peijnenburg, Claire Witteveen, and Daan Heijbroek/Courtesy of Emma Peijnenburg, Claire Witteveen, and Daan Heijbroek.
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"I first heard about this book from my daughter Jolie, who met de Mayee in Amsterdam when she and a friend rented an Airbnb in his home. Jolie is someone who lives for her next meal (like mother, like daughter!), so it’s no surprise that the topic of food came up when she first met de Mayee.
Having recently published his cookbook, he shared with Jolie the inspiration behind it: his mother, who he lovingly calls “the world’s best Assyrian chef.” When Jolie mentioned that her mother runs The Wine Chef (perhaps adding that I’m one of her greatest inspirations!), de Mayee’s publisher sent me a copy of this gorgeous tribute to Assyrian cooking."
In a collaboration between Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (LMU) and the University of Baghdad, an ancient Babylonian hymn dating back over two millennia has been rediscovered and fully deciphered.
The new AI tool “Palaeographicum” is revolutionizing research into the cultures of the Ancient Near East: It identifies individual variations of cuneiform signs—a huge step forward for academia.
The Shamash Gate in ancient Nineveh has revealed rare evidence of two violent chapters separated by more than 2,500 years: the fall of the Assyrian capital in 612 B.C. and the battle to free Mosul from ISIS in 2017.
A growing number of Assyrians are returning to spend their summers reconnecting with family, heritage, and community. At the heart of this revival are the village bed-and-breakfasts that have become gateways home for Assyrians from across the diaspora.
The Assyrian Monitor for Human Rights has issued a statement condemning what it describes as arbitrary detention practices carried out by members of the Kurdish Asayish security forces in Qamishli, calling for the immediate release of four Assyrian detainees, including a German national.
Assyrian News Broadcasting (ANB) has announced that it has temporarily suspended publishing news on its Facebook page due to an ongoing dispute over the platform's media identity and intellectual property rights.
Swiss-Assyrian artist Shamiran Istifan is receiving widespread acclaim for her latest exhibition at the Aargauer Kunsthaus, where her installations explore themes of beauty, migration, identity and censorship through striking visual symbolism.
Lisa Denning
Ramsen Shamon
