The healer
Grenfell Tower survivor Munira Mahmud found herself homeless, with no kitchen. And that brought a community together to share a love of cooking After her home was destroyed in the Grenfell Tower fire in West London, Munira Mahmud had nowhere to prepare food for her family. The blaze, which began to rip through the 24-storey building on 14 June 2017, caused 72 deaths and injured many more. Mahmud and her family escaped, but were left homeless. “We were placed in a hotel and I had no kitchen,” she says. “I used to go to my friend Jennifer’s house to cook there. On my wedding anniversary, I’d been with my husband for nine years and wanted to cook a big meal, but I couldn’t cook two lambs in her kitchen!”
Along with some friends, she approached the Al-Manaar Muslim Cultural Heritage Centre to ask if
they could use the facilities there. It was the beginning of what would become the Hubb Community Kitchen. Local women shared the kitchen on Tuesdays and Thursdays every week, preparing food and eating together. “Soon there were women from different cultures all cooking, swapping recipes, talking and laughing together,” says Mahmud. “Being together as a community and sharing food is really nice. There’s laughing and the kids are running around.” This community of women became known as the Hubb Community Kitchen – Hubb means ‘love’ in Arabic. They still meet twice a week.
“I love to cook because I love to feed people. That’s how you share love and togetherness”
Mahmud is from Uganda, but her husband was born in Grenfell. “Grenfell was a real community,” she recalls, and she is among the women featured in Together: Our
Community Cookbook, a collection of recipes and stories from the Hubb. It’s a cookbook, but also tells the story of this resilient West London community, and how cooking together has helped them to connect, heal and rebuild hope. Proceeds from sales of the book will help the kitchen continue.
In it, Mahmud describes the Egyptian dish of lamb fattah, which her husband’s mother taught her to cook. “It’s traditional to serve it at Eid, the festival that marks the end of Ramadan.” Then there’s the spicy vegetable samosas which she used to cook with her neighbour Rania while living in the tower. “The first time I made these for her, she ate 10 of them. Really!”
Another recipe is for a refreshing ginger tea made from milk, tea leaves, sugar and spices. “In Uganda, we say, the richer you are, the more spices you put in.” And there’s Mahamri: light and fluffy African buns, which she likens to doughnuts. “They’re good with cream cheese, honey or jam, although in Uganda we eat them with everything, even meat,” she says. “We can all do with a little pleasure in our lives.”
At the heart of the book is the message that a simple, shared dish can connect people, help to restore hope and normality, and create a sense of home, wherever you may be in the world. For Mahmud, who describes both of her parents as great cooks, it is simple. “I love to cook because I love to feed people. That’s how you share love and togetherness.” She adds: “We all have a big dream for the wider community. It’s not just to feed people from Grenfell, who don’t have kitchens, but it’s for the whole community. This community has given us so much since the fire, it’s unbelievable. The love they’ve given us is unconditional, and the care. So, this is a way of giving something back.”