Book excerpt: A Finalist for the 2022 James Beard Foundation Cookbook Award and the 2022 IACP Award (International) Longlisted for the 2022 Art of Eating Prize A New York Times Best Cookbook of 2021 • A Guardian Best Food Book of 2021 • A Simply Recipes Favorite Cookbook of 2021 • A WBUR Here & Now Favorite Cookbook of 2021 The acclaimed author of Zaitoun returns with vibrant recipes and powerful stories from the islands that bridge the Mediterranean and the Middle East. For thousands of years, the eastern Mediterranean has stood as a meeting point between East and West, bringing cultures and cuisines through trade, commerce, and migration. Traveling by boat and land, Yasmin Khan traces the ingredients that have spread through the region from the time of Ottoman rule to the influence of recent refugee communities. At the kitchen table, she explores what borders, identity, and migration mean in an interconnected world, and her recipes unite around thickets of dill and bunches of oregano, zesty citrus and sweet dates, thick tahini and soothing cardamom. Khan includes healthy, seasonal, vegetable-focused recipes, such as hot yogurt soups, zucchini and feta fritters, pomegranate and sumac chicken, and candied pumpkin with tahini and date syrup. Fully accessible for the home cook, with stunning food and location photography, Ripe Figs is a dazzling collection of recipes and stories that celebrate an ever-diversifying region and imagine a world without borders.