SIT DOWN & EAT!

Canadian chef evokes the flavours of his childhood in mom's kitchen

“Eat, habibi, eat!” was a key refrain in the soundtrack to Shahir Massoud's childhood. Habibi is a versatile Arabic word; its meaning shifts depending on the context. But in this phrase, oft-repeated by the chef's Egyptian mother when he was growing up in Toronto, it translates as “my darling.”

The familiar exclamation became the name of his debut cookbook, Eat, Habibi, Eat! (Appetite by Random House, 2021), in which Massoud reinterprets the Egyptian dishes of his upbringing. Now the father of two finds himself imploring his children to do more eating and less goofing around the same way.

“That's what you grew up listening to. Every mother, every aunt, every grandmother would be yelling at you, `Eat, habibi, eat! Sit down.' ... Really, the book could have been called Sit Down: Eat, Habibi, Eat! We just eliminated the `sit down,'” says Massoud, laughing.

A graduate of the Schulich School of Business at Toronto's York University, Massoud changed tack five months shy of qualifying as a chartered accountant.

He moved to New York City where he graduated from the French Culinary Institute (now the International Culinary Center), cut his teeth at Italian restaurant Lupa and gained experience at the likes of the Mark by Jean- Georges and the now-shuttered Pulino's.

When he started to consider cookbook ideas in 2018, then back in Toronto, he initially gravitated toward the familiar: a decade's worth of experience in Italian and French fine dining.

In the midst of listing recipes such as bucatini all'amatriciana and croque madame — the “greatest hits” of his culinary career — he hesitated. “I thought, `What kind of book could only I write?' And then it hit me,” recalls Massoud.

In his professional cooking, Egyptian food hadn't been on his radar, but he was aware that Middle Eastern flavours had become more popular in the West than ever before.

While people rarely asked him about Egyptian food when he was growing up, that was starting to change. Massoud's thoughts turned to the dishes his mother made during his childhood as he contemplated ways he could put his own mark on them.

“All the things that I longed for when I was a kid and said, `This is tasty but man, I want some texture here' or `I want her to cook it a little less.' And that's where I got the idea,” says Massoud.

“I could take the classic French training, some experience from Italian restaurants, experience as a Canadian person growing up in Canada, experience training and living in New York City, and combine all those things to put a makeover on those Egyptian dishes.”