Ottolenghi: a Love Story Ari Ariel
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Ottolenghi: A Love Story Ari Ariel otam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi Israeli Cuisine. Yes, they use lots of tahini experiences and memories. They themselves met in 1997. Tamimi was then the chef and pomegranates, but there are also recipes call it self-indulgent. Nostalgia, of course, Yat Baker & Spice, a bakery and retail in the book that could be described as Asian, is a form of remembering and forgetting; as food shop in London. Ottolenghi, an aspiring Italian, and even American (Roasted Sweet such, it cannot be apolitical. The authors are pastry chef, walked in looking for a job and Potato with Pecan and Maple) There is also clearly aware of this. In their first book they they quickly became close friends. They have nothing overtly Jewish about this food. wrote, “Looking back now, we realize how been working together ever extremely different our childhood since. When Ottolenghi opened experiences were and yet how his eponymous deli/gourmet often they converged—physically, store five years later, Tamimi when venturing out to the ‘other joined him as a partner. Together side,’ and spiritually, sharing they have opened four shops and sensation of a place and time.” a restaurant, and have written But one questions if they really two books, Ottolenghi and shared a place and time at all? In Jerusalem. (Ottolenghi has also Jerusalem they astutely note that written another book, Plenty, on the city has been “at the heart of the his own.) “It’s like a love story,” struggle between these two fierce Ottolenghi joked on KCRW’s nationalistic movements,” each radio show Good Food. The two of which has constructed its own are not, in fact, lovers. They’re historical narrative. Of the 1948 more like brothers, maybe even War they say, “for the Jews it is the twins. They were both born in War of Independence, an assertive Jerusalem in 1968. Both then act of bravery after the trauma of moved to Tel Aviv, in part to the holocaust; for Arabs, however, it escape Jerusalem’s conservatism, is called a nakba, ‘the catastrophe.’” and both immigrated to They say little, however, about England in the same year. the 1967 War, an event that must Because one is Jewish and have had an even greater impact the other Palestinian-Muslim, on their lives. Again, the collective there has been an irresistible memories of the Jewish and desire on the part of observers, Palestinian communities are quite journalists, and foodies alike divergent. For Israeli Jews this was a to see the two as poster boys miraculous victory, for Palestinians for peace. But the two men a traumatic loss. According to Dana resist this move. According to Hercbergs: “The interplay between Ottolenghi, “we did resist it for one nation’s victory and another’s a very long time and I think loss shapes Jerusalemites’ personal the problem that Sami and I narratives about their childhood Cover of Jerusalem (Ebury Publishing, RRP £27). Reprinted by permission. always felt is that, especially past, although the local dimension since Jerusalem came out, people and the tendency to view wanted to use our example as a childhood as a positive time sign that something is possible in the Middle Their cookery is focused on bold, sensual complicate the dualistic perspectives that the East … It’s almost intimidating to feel that flavors above all else. You will find no foams national narratives seem to suggest.” Indeed, you kind of carry this on your shoulders, that or spherification here, just good, simple both Ottolenghi and Tamimi express a fond we are the example of coexistence, because cooking using lots of garlic, lemon, and nostalgia for the city of their youth, but their we know how untrue that is deep inside.” spices. Their mission is to bring the pleasure experiences, and those of their families and The two embrace being a bit rebellious. of their food to as many people as possible. communities, must have been quite different. “Sami is not a typical Palestinian, I am not a Until recently Ottolenghi and Tamimi For Israeli Jews, the reunification of typical Jew,” says Ottolenghi. The first recipe had largely avoided the politics of Israel/ Jerusalem meant access to the Old City and in their first book includes pork and they Palestine. Their latest book, Jerusalem, the reconstruction of the Jewish Quarter; initially wanted the book cover for Jerusalem however, is another matter. It is political, for Palestinians it meant the demolition of to be to a photograph of a shrimp dish. almost against their wills. It is not intended the Moroccan Quarter and a series of land Ottolenghi is not a Middle Eastern cookbook, as an exhaustive study of the city’s food but expropriations. Overnight, Arabs in East and the authors do not call their food New is instead a nostalgic recounting of their food Jerusalem became a “minority” community 66 AJS Perspectives in a country established on the basis of Jewish in Poopa Dweck’s book on Syrian Jewish But a name is never just a name. Culinary hegemony. “Venturing out to the ‘other side’” cuisine. On the other hand, they point out terminology, like the renaming of villages or for an Arab and a Jew could not have been that the herb za `atar is a Palestinian ingredient immigrant name changing, is about power. the same. For the Arab side, the experience that the Israeli government has declared an Ottolenghi and Tamimi maneuver this was colonial. In fact, it is hard not to see endangered species and has banned collecting treacherous field as well as can be expected. Jewish culinary tourism in East Jerusalem in the wild. This occurred without any They are not politicians and claim to represent as a paradigmatic case of Heldke’s “cultural dialogue with the Palestinian population. no one but themselves. They are far too food colonialism.” Even when eating out is More recently, in a conversation with sophisticated to believe that their partnership a well-intentioned and respectful attempt the authors of The Gaza Kitchen, Ottolenghi is a model for national reconciliation. They to learn more about another culture, it is at said that if he were to rewrite Jerusalem, he are asked repeatedly if food can help bring the same time “motivated by a deep desire would take the question of appropriation peace to the Middle East. Their answers are to have contact with, and to somehow own and ownership more seriously. “I probably highly nuanced. They are not naive—food an experience of, an Exotic Other.” Food would have made the point that it’s very is not a magic bullet. On the other hand, colonialism also involves the appropriation hard to say who is the originator of each real interaction between Jews and Arabs in of culinary practices by those in power. dish, but it’s also overwhelmingly true Israel/Palestine is rare. Food markets and Food ownership is a hot button issue that some of those dishes are the symbols restaurants provide unique spaces of contact. in Israel/Palestine. Ottolenghi and Tamimi of the Palestinian culture, and as such Likewise, ingredients and dishes move from address this issue head on, though in they just cannot become everybody’s sign one community to another. So maybe food ambivalent ways. They resist ownership of culture or identity. That the sign of an can be a first step. It might be our only hope. and authenticity on the grounds that it is identity is a bit more crucial than just “Food probably could be a vehicle to bring impossible to determine who invented a getting the history right of a certain dish.” people closer together,” Ottolenghi says, dish. Instead they focus on Jerusalem as It is, of course, impossible to write “the next step will have to transcend food.” a site of culinary interaction and overlap. a book on the food of Jerusalem without This is perhaps natural since many of the being political. Something as seemingly Ari Ariel is lecturer in Middle Eastern History “Jewish” recipes in their book are Middle mundane as the name of an ingredient at Bryn Mawr College and is the author of Eastern or Sephardic. These often bear quite a can be a contentious landmine—maftoul, Jewish-Muslim Relations and Migration from resemblance to Palestinian foods. At the same Israeli couscous, ptitim, moghrabieh and Yemen to Palestine in the Late Nineteenth time, their mejadra recipe could easily appear even fregola are all remarkably similar. and Twentieth Centuries (Brill, 2014). Vallentine Mitchell Publishers From Victim to Survivor Loyalty Betrayed The Emergence and Development of the Holocaust Jewish Chaplains in the German Army During the Witness, 1941–1949 First World War Margaret Taft Peter C. 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