Shawarma the Syrian way
For Ali Fallaha, life in Syria was pretty swell.
That sounds counterintuitive today given the current image of Syria is one of war and tragedy.
But, during his years there before moving to Canada in 2006, Fallaha had it made in the shade.
Graduating from the University of Damascus in 1980, he immediately found work as a geologist, examining locations for diamond mines. He began cooking for the long stretches in the field — 25 days at a time — and soon was bringing food for the whole team. He then began a side business making prepared meals, and later opened a clothing factory, then another one, producing leather shoes.
“My situation was at the top,” Fallaha tells me, as he sits down on a stool for a rest in the kitchen of his Mississauga restaurant Reyan. “Geologist, catering, I have my own business, my family, my house, my car. So I have everything. Life itself is good.”
He had everything but the freedom to come and go.
Fallaha was born in Syria but his parents were Palestinian.
“I have the same right Syrians have. I can study in the university free. I get a job easy. But I have no travel documents.”
His brother Mazen, a chemical engineer, lined up a good job prospect in Qatar, but couldn’t get permission to leave the country for the interview in Jordan, just a few hours drive. It took more than a month to get the documents to cross the border and in that time he lost the opportunity.
Mazen applied for Canadian citizenship and added Ali’s name as well. At first Fallaha didn’t want to go. But in the five years between filing the request and being called for an interview, his attitude changed.
“My sister lived in Jordan. My aunt lived in Lebanon. It’s like 40 minutes from us. But we cannot cross the border. My brother said, ‘Do you remember when your sister’s husband died? Could you go there to stand behind your sister? You couldn’t. And don’t forget you have two boys. Think about your kids’ future. Stay and they will live as we live here.’ ”
He only intended to stay in Canada long enough to help establish his children, before returning. Since he didn’t need to renounce Syrian citizenship he was permitted to go. But life in Canada was hard at first.
“I’m not happy when I came here. I try here to start as a geologist. But it doesn’t work. I am 48 years old. I graduate not from Canada. My English is not so good. And if I want to qualify it will take five years. I will be 55. Who will hire me?”
So he decided to switch to the restaurant business, working for two years in an Italian restaurant and an Arabic restaurant, learning about Canadian tastes while saving money.
He was not impressed by the shawarma here.
“It is not shawarma,” he says of the pita loaded with onions, pickles and lettuce. “It’s shawarma Subway style. If I make it back home, like they make it here, I’d have no customers.”
While working for someone else, he tried it his way, just a bit of garlic and pickles with the chicken. “But they didn’t accept that. It’s not my store. I cannot make what I want.”
So in 2009 he took over the current property from a Sri Lankan restaurant.
His brother, also unable to work in his field as a chemical engineer, helped out. At first, they served only shawarma and falafel.
“But around me there became a lot of shawarma stores. Competition. I discuss this matter with my wife, Hazar. The real chef is my wife. She is the brains. Back in Syria, all people like her dishes. She teach me.”
With his wife’s guidance, he added more Syrian style dishes — horrak osba’ao (a.k.a. “finger burner,” lentils and fried bread), basmashkat (a thin steak stuffed with ground beef, which Fallaha delights in untying at the table, for the customers) — and the business grew.
“The Syrian kitchen is very famous in Arabic world. Lebanon is the first kitchen in appetizers. Kibbeh, tabbouleh, things like that. But,” he holds up a finger, “Syria, main course.” One lamb for a girl Sometimes a recipe isn’t about taste, but religious tradition. And sometimes it’s both.
The lamb in this pot is for aqiqa, the Islamic tradition of sacrificing and serving an animal for the birth of a child. So it had to be one year old, healthy and slaughtered in the name of the newborn.
“For sons, you have to slaughter two lambs. For daughters, one,” says Fallaha. “Either sheep or lamb or cow or camel. If you don’t have money, chicken is good.”
Another tradition is to invite less fortunate people to share the lamb.
This one, chopped into fist-sized chunks, has been boiled in a large pot for five hours with lots of cinnamon bark, and spice shakers filled with pepper, nutmeg, bay leaves and cloves. Draining off the rich lamb stock, Fallaha uses it to cook the basmati rice.
Pouring the fragrant rice onto trays, he tops it with the meat, placing the skull in the centre while I pick out any cinnamon sticks and loose bones; the meat is falling off the bones.
He fills a separate bowl with rice and lamb for me. The fat is so soft you could spread it on toast for breakfast. The meat and rice are perfumed with the spices, none of them competing with the intensity of the flesh.
If you want to try some of Fallaha’s cooking and you don’t live in Mississauga, you can attend the Supper With Syria fundraiser at Wychwood Barns on Nov. 29, featuring Syrian food, music and culture. Proceeds go to support Lifeline Syria, an organization that helps settle Syrians in Canada. You can buy tickets at Torontoartscape.org. Note: Last week’s column, about the kitchen at the Toronto Zoo, inaccurately identified potatoes, squash and carrots as being fed to “red river hawks,” when they are, in fact, fed to “red river hogs.” Dear red river hogs, with your white stripes and droopy ears, I regret the error. Email mintz.corey@gmail.com and follow @coreymintz on Twitter and instagram.com/coreymintz.