San Francisco welcomes refugee chefs
SAN FRANCISCO: At Tawla restaurant here, Muna Anaee powdered her hands with flour and gently broke off a piece of golden dough to prepare bread eaten in Iraq, the country she fled with her family.
Anaee was preparing more than 100 loaves for diners on Wednesday night as part of a programme that lets refugees aspiring to be chefs work in professional kitchens.
The Refugee Food Festival – a joint initiative of the United Nations Refugee Agency and French nonprofit Food Sweet Food – started in Paris in 2016 and came to the United States for the first time this year, with restaurants in New York participating as well.
The owners turn over their kitchens to refugee chefs for an evening so that they can prepare sampling platters of their country’s cuisine.
Restaurants in 12 cities outside the United States are taking part in the programme this month.
“It’s been a big dream to open a restaurant,” said Anaee, 45, who now has a green card.
Anaee was among five refugees chosen to showcase their food in San Francisco – each at a different restaurant and on a different night, from Tuesday through Saturday. Organisers say the goal is to help the refugees succeed as chefs and raise awareness about the plight of refugees worldwide.
“It’s important to really get to know these refugees and their personal stories,” said Sara Shah, who brought the event to California after seeing it in Belgium.
Azhar Hashem, Tawla’s owner, said hosting Anaee was part of the restaurant’s mission to broaden diners’ understanding of the Middle East.
“Food is the best and most humanising catalyst for having harder conservations,” she said.