FALASTIN IS A NEW KIND OF PALESTINIAN COOKBOOK:
a contemporary collection of over
110 recipes we hope you’ll cook, eat, love and make your own. It’s the culmination of Sami’s lifetime obsession with Middle Eastern food and cooking and Tara’s decade-long obsession with the same. Sami was born and raised in East Jerusalem, relocated to London in his late twenties, and was a founding member of Ottolenghi, while Tara was raised in London and adopted into the Ottolenghi family.
The recipes come, therefore, from all sorts of places. Some are those Sami grew up with and which will always remind him of home. His father’s easy za’atar eggs, for example, or his mother’s buttermilk fattoush. Others are those most Palestinians grew up on: classics such as chicken musakhan (see right). We haven’t felt bound by a set list of ‘traditional Palestinian dishes’, though. We’d rather shine a new light on an old classic than re-create it verbatim.
If Jerusalem was Sami and Yotam’s joint effort to celebrate the food of their home town and bring it to a wider audience, then Falastin is Sami and Tara’s focus on the food of Palestine. Speaking in general terms about ‘Middle Eastern’ food is rather like saying ‘European food’, or ‘Italian food’: it does not pay heed to all the distinct people, produce and dishes which distinguish one country from another within a region. It doesn’t allow for the importance of sumac in a dish such as chicken musakhan to shine, for example, or reveal how many Gazan dishes have the trio of dill, garlic and chilli shaping them. Keeping our focus exclusively on Palestine allows us to explore not only the food of this land and people, but also the regional differences within.
As well as our recipes, another way to get to know the country is through its people. When talking about Palestine in general terms, conversation can quickly become political and difficult. Focus in, though – travel around the country meeting and eating with people – and the picture painted is a different one.
The link between the land and the produce, and the people who grow, farm and make it, is strong. Meet someone who explains how they make their labneh or yoghurt from the milk of their own sheep or goat, for example, or smell the fresh za’atar leaves on a small farm on a sunny spring afternoon, and the outlook is clearly brighter.
Writing these stories – indeed writing a Palestinian cookbook – feels like a big responsibility. All the food and hospitality that a recipe book celebrates must be served, in the case of Palestine, against a very sobering backdrop. We want this backdrop to be properly painted – things cannot be changed until they are fully seen – but, also, our hope is that everyone will come around the table to cook, eat and talk.
When Jerusalem was published,
Sami was asked many times, with varying degrees of irony to seriousness, about the role hummus could play in the Middle Eastern peace process. On the one hand, as he used to say, it’s only food. It’s chickpeas, it’s lemons, it’s tahini.
At the same time, food can mean more. Sharing food is not just about sharing food. It’s about sharing time, space, ideas and stories.”
We’d rather shine a light on an old classic than re-create it verbatim