Nawal Nasrallah was a professor of English and comparative literature at the universities of Baghdad and Mosul. As an independent scholar, one of her recent publications is Delights from the Garden of Eden: A Cookbook and a History of the Iraqi Cuisine(Authorhouse, 2003).

Gourmand World Cookbook Award 2007 for best translated cookbookHonorable mention of the Arab American National Museum Book Award 2007“[…] this is an impressive piece of scholarship and a joy to read both for pleasure and for more sober historical reflection on the ways medieval bourgeois Arab Muslim, and also Christian and Jewish urbanites, enjoyed themselves at table.” David Waines, Dept of Religious Studies, Lancaster University, Journal of Semitic Studies, Vol. 54, 2009."[...] this is a major resource that should be in every university library and will be consulted for years to come by anyone who is interested in the history of cuisine in the Middle East." Daniel Martin Varisco, Hofstra University, Review of Middle East Studies, 2009Listen to the podcast "A Thousand and One Recipes: Caliphate Cooking in 10th Century Baghdad" by The Feast and learn how to cook rakhbiniyya (a dish with dried buttermilk) and jazar mahshi (a cold dish of dressed carrots).http://www.thefeastpodcast.org/271001-recipes