Nigel Slater's Middle East

Nigel starts his journey in the capital, Beirut, at the end of Ramadan, where he is invited to celebrate Eid with a local family, before travelling south to Nabatieh near Israel and East to the Beqaa Valley close to the Syrian border. On his journey, Nigel explores the resilience of the country and its people, their survival and preservation through decades of war, and sees how this is reflected in their pride in their culture, and most importantly, in their food.

Nigel Slater continues his Middle Eastern culinary adventure by visiting Turkey, home to one of the world's grandest cuisines. Travelling from the bustling megacity of Istanbul to the rural heartlands of Central Anatolia, and through the mountains of the Black Sea, Nigel discovers a vast and varied landscape, rich with tradition and local flavour.

Nigel Slater's Middle Eastern food adventure concludes with a visit to a country shrouded in mystery and often in the headlines: Iran.

Here Nigel sets out to discover the secrets of Persian food, one of the oldest and most influential cuisines in the world. He begins his journey in the bustling capital Tehran, where he is invited into the homes of people who cook dishes that have been handed through the generations. He is taken to lunch at his taxi driver's house to sample Dizi, an Iranian favourite for hundreds of years and possibly the nation's most popular dish.