Habeeb Salloum - Travel Writer

Habeeb Salloum

Habeeb Salloum, a member of Travel Media Association of Canada (TMAC), lived his youth in Saskatchewan, western Canada, then after serving in the Royal Canadian Air Force from 1943-45, he moved to Toronto where he now resides. For 36 years he worked for Revenue Canada from 1949 to 1985 while, at the same time, pursuing his literary and scholastic interests. After retirement, he became a full-time freelance writer and author.

Mr. Salloum has travelled extensively to most parts of the world and has written hundreds of articles about the countries through which he travelled and about their cuisines. For the last 22 years he has been a full-time freelance writer and author specializing in food, history and travel. Besides 6 books and 18 chapters in books, he has had hundreds of articles about culture, food, travel, history and homesteading in western Canada, especially about Arab pioneering/homesteading in western Canada; the impact of Arab/Muslim Spain on the development of subsequent world history; and Arabic contributions to the English and Spanish vocabularies.

Among his most important published books are: Classic Vegetarian Cooking > From the Middle East and North Africa; Arabic Contributions to the English Vocabulary; From the Lands of Figs and Olives: Over 300 Delicious and Unusual Recipes from the Middle East and North Africa; Journeys Back to Arab Spain; and just newly published Arab Cooking On A Saskatchewan Homestead, November 2005. as well as the chapter on the history of the Syrians in Canada in the Encyclopedia of Canada's Peoples.

Currently, Habeeb Salloum still spends his time traveling and writing about his travels. While at home, he continues to create new dishes and to redact medieval recipes, the latter soon to be made into a book about medieval Arab sweets. His writings on these subjects continue to be published in a series of newspapers and magazines in North America, Europe and the Middle East. He lives in Toronto, Canada, with his wife and one of his daughters, who is kept busy proof reading his work.