Fozia Shwek

There is a romantic background to Fozia Shwek’s culinary skills. After she first met and married Fouad 17 years ago, they spent months zigzagging across the Mediterranean. They only stopped their voyaging when Fozia’s first pregnancy was well advanced. A personal fortune? Oil wealth? Far from it. Fouad’s job as a radio officer on cargo and passenger ships meant they travelled together from Libya to Italy, Spain, Malta, Greece, Turkey and Portugal. As a result, the impressionable Fozia gained a strong taste for foreign cultures and cuisines - a rarity for a young woman in 1980s’ Tripoli.