By Sally Butcher

Don't bother looking up Snackistan in the atlas; although it sounds like a little country on the border of Kazakhstan, it isn't. It's a place that exists in Sally Butcher's imagination, a "fictitious land where tummies are always full … a borderless confederation of the Middle East's favourite foodstuffs. The simple fare that people eat on a daily basis: dishes they prepare at home, cook to share with friends, or look forward to indulging in at the end of the week; the food of choice across the region."

Butcher admits that the geographical lines are a bit blurred: "I have deliberately wobbled over the edges of the area conventionally known as the Middle East, straying into neighbouring Greece and Sudan, for example." Her definition of "snack" is also a bit sketchy; many of the dishes are what other people would call main courses.

Still, all the recipes sound tempting, and her cooking tips (such as adding the salt at the end, in a dish of squid cooked in ink because the ingredients themselves are salty) are sensible and helpful. The recipes include Greek gyros (described as "the pork and chips butty"); Tunisian tuna brik (unfortunately, she doesn't give a recipe for the dough itself); spring chicken marinated with lemon and saffron; quails on sticks (pictured above); fried brains in saffron sauce; Sudanese mashed broad beans; injera (Ethiopian bread); Iranian tongue sandwich; and mastic ice cream with pistachios.