Falastin, Tara and Sami Have Picked up the Baton Where It Was Left After Jerusalem
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A COOKBOOK SAMI TAMIMI TARA WIGLEY Photography by Jenny Zarins Contents Foreword 7 Introduction 10 Breakfast 18 Snacks, Spreads and Sauces 42 Veggie Sides and Salads 88 Soups 144 Veggie Mains 158 Fish 186 Meat 216 Breads and Pastries 274 Sweets 298 Glossary 334 Index 343 Acknowledgements 350 Foreword I love Palestinian food. I probably love it more than any other cuisine. That’s a tricky thing to say, I know, since I am not a Palestinian. As a Jewish boy from the Jerusalem of the 1970s and ’80s, though, I probably had enough kubbeh, bamia, and ma’amoul for these magnificent foods to insert themselves deep in my young psyche. Not to mention those dishes that were also becoming part of the nascent Israeli cuisine—like falafel, hummus, and tabbouleh—either as a direct result of Palestinian influence on our food or through Jewish emigrants from the Arab world settling in the city. I had been living outside Jerusalem for more than twenty years when I got to revisit all these pleasurable memories while writing Jerusalem with Sami Tamimi in 2012. That book was an unashamed celebration of a rather eclectic set of dishes that Sami and I liked to eat growing up, or that we felt were instrumental to understanding the soul of our city. The job was complicated, politically, since we had to put aside the harsh reality of the occupation of the West Bank. But it was a labor of love: love of ingredients, love of our city, love of our families and childhood memories. Through our friendship, helped by a “healthy” distance of 3,600 kilometers separating London from Jerusalem, we told a story that was pure deliciousness and joy. Once Sami and I put our proverbial pens down, though, we both knew that there was another story to tell, and that is the wider story of Palestinian cuisine: a tale of a formidable food nation that gave the region and the rest of the world some of its most beloved foods. In Falastin, Tara and Sami have picked up the baton where it was left after Jerusalem. Once again, this is a purely delicious affair (you can take my word for it; I was lucky enough to be there when they tested the recipes). It is based on Sami’s childhood in Palestine and Tara’s journey into the universe of tahini, za’atar, and precarious savory rice cakes (i.e., maqlubeh). Being the two formidable culinary forces that they are, Tara and Sami are the best guides I can possibly think of to take you into this world, to learn, like me, to enjoy it and absolutely love it. Yotam Ottolenghi 7 Introduction Falastin: the place and people This is a book about Palestine—its food, its produce, its history, its future, its There is no letter “p” in the Arabic language so “Falastin” is, on the one hand, simply people and their voices. It is a book about the common themes that all these the way “Falastinians” refer to themselves. On the other hand, though—and in the elements share, and how Palestine weaves narrative and cooking into the fabric Middle East there is always an “on the other hand”—the word is a big one, going far of its identity. The two go hand in hand. Recipes are like stories: events brought to beyond a straightforward label. It is about geography, history, language, land, identity, life and shared in the making and telling. They are passed from one person to the and culture. Ask a Palestinian what the word “Falastin” means to them: the answer next, and in that movement, some details change, others come to the fore, while will rarely be short and will often end with the word “home.” others will be left by the wayside. And stories are like recipes: a series of individual For us, for the purposes of our book, “Falastin” is about all of these things. experiences blended together to create a whole. Where stories and recipes Geographically, it refers to a small piece of land at the eastern-most corner of intersect is the nexus, the point, of this book. Rather than telling “a” story or “the” the Mediterranean Sea where Palestinians have been living for many centuries. story of Palestine, then, we’re telling lots of stories. These come in the form of That this statement is so complicated by the fact that this land is also home to both our recipes and the profiles of some of the people and places we’ve met other peoples, Israelis, is something we are very mindful of. Our aim with Falastin along the way. is to tread the fine line between paying heed to the situation on one hand and First, however, an outline of what is at the heart of this book: the story remembering, at the same time, that our book is first and foremost a celebration of of Falastin, the place and its people; the story of Falastin, our book; and the the food and people of Palestine. story of Sami, your host, and and Tara, your guide. As well as being a geographical label, it’s also about identity. For us, it embraces all those who identify as Palestinian, wherever in the world they’re now living. The Palestinian story, post 1948 and with the creation of Israel, could be seen as one of relocation. There are as many different stories as to why a Palestinian is now living where they are living as there are Palestinians. And with more than 12 million Palestinians worldwide, that’s a lot. There are those who’ve chosen to live abroad and those who have had no choice but to live abroad. There are those who have been displaced closer to home and those who are still living where their parents and grandparents lived before them. Some have known nothing but life in a refugee camp and have never seen the nearby coast, and others have traveled the world freely and have now chosen to return. And then there are those who’ve never actually been to the country itself but who still strongly identify as Palestinian, through the stories and memories passed down from their Palestinian family. The people of Palestine go by several different names, depending on whom you ask. Some favor “Palestinian,” others prefer “the people of the north,” “Arabs of the Nagev,” “Arab refugees” or “48ers.” “Arab-Israeli,” “Israeli- Arab” or “Palestinian-Israeli” are also used. For us, the words “Falastin” and “Falastinian” are inclusive, managing to incorporate all these various words at the same time as somehow transcending their often loaded meanings. 10 11 At the same time as exploring the regions of Palestine, the purpose of Falastin is to be full of recipes that work for and delight the home cook today. We really want you to cook from the recipes in our book—to find them practical and doable as well as delicious. This means you’ll find fewer recipes for stuffed vegetables in Falastin than you would in a “traditional” Palestinian cookbook, fewer recipes for celebratory dishes that take half a day to prepare, less call for hard-to-find kishek or jameed, the fermented discs of yogurt and wheat in which Falastin: our book to bake a leg of lamb. Loyalty to the Palestinian pantry, though—and a reliance on the ground allspice and cumin, olive oil, pulses, grains, za’atar, sumac, lemons, yogurt, dill, garlic, and green chiles that fill it—is unwavering. Our recipes feel Falastin is a new kind of Palestinian cookbook: a contemporary collection of distinctly Palestinian, even when they are presented in a slightly new light. Luckily, more than 110 recipes we hope you’ll cook, eat, love, and make your own. It’s the for those living outside the Middle East, the Palestinian pantry is also one that can culmination of Sami’s lifetime obsession with Middle Eastern food and cooking— be easily sourced and put together from mainstream stores and sites. born and raised in East Jerusalem, relocated to London in his late twenties, As well as our recipes, another way to get to know the country is through its and a founding member of Ottolenghi—and Tara’s decade-long obsession with people. When talking about Palestine in general terms, conversation can quickly Middle Eastern food and home cooking—raised in London and adopted into the become political and difficult. The day-to-day frustrations for a Palestinian trying to Ottolenghi family. go about their business, when heard by those who don’t need to carry an ID card with The recipes come, therefore, from all sorts of places. Some are those Sami them or require a permit to travel around their country, are easy not to comprehend. grew up with and which will always remind him of home. His father’s easy za’atar For most Palestinians in the West Bank, the reality of checkpoints, a separation wall, eggs, for example, or his mother’s buttermilk fattoush. Others are those most and the complicated systems and differing rules surrounding areas A, B, and C (see Palestinians grew up on: classics such as chicken musakhan or the upside-down page 130 for more on this) makes, frankly, for a pretty grim picture. rice cake, maqlubeh. One recipe—that for hummus—remains untouched from Focus in, though—travel around the country meeting and eating with when Sami first published it in his second cook book, Jerusalem. After all, there are people—and the picture painted is a different one.