Remembering Sophie!

He remembers fondly their trip to Rome and talks about how it all got started. It must have been sometime around 1975. That trip to Rome proved to be life changing. Michael Coe is lovingly talking about his late wife, Sophie Coe, in Oxford, on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of The Sophie Coe Prize in Food History. 

They liked to travel. Both being anthropologists, and Michael Coe having also studied archaeology, they were curious about discovering different cultures and liked traveling to various countries. They had been to Turkey several times, visiting all the archaeological sites on the Aegean coast, traveling to Kars and Lake Van; when they were in the ancient Armenian city Ani, they were all alone in that magnificent site, and the other side of the border was still Soviet Russia. It was the years when traveling in Turkey required huge stamina, great determination and a passion for curiosity. They went to Çorum to find the Hittite capital Hattusa, loved the Anatolian Civilizations Museum in Ankara. Michael Coe distinctly remembers all the wonderful details about their trips in Anatolia and Istanbul. 

But it was an English bookshop in Rome that changed Sophie's destiny. Already an accomplished cook, she was very much interested in cookbooks and learning about food cultures. She found a book about Mediterranean fishes, and fell in love with the book instantly. The book contained the local names of each fish in various languages around the Mediterranean, including the scientific name, and provided ample information about the fish, together with fish recipes from various countries. It was like no cookbook before. It was a book written by Alan Davidson, a curio man quite obsessed with food. Being a diplomat, Davidson traveled and lived all...