ORIGIN STORY
Don’t miss Khanya Mzongwana's interview with Hawa Hassan, Somali-born cook, entrepreneur and author of In Bibi's Kitchen.
The story of Hawa Hassan, a Somalian-born cook and food entrepreneur who moved to the US alone, aged seven, is only as remarkable as those of the African grandmothers in her cookbook In Bibi's Kitchen. Khanya Mzongwana spoke to her about her life, her work and the women who inspired these recipes
and shorter fences; to start conversation.” It’s this approach that makes Hawa Hassan, who was displaced from her homeland at a very young age, such an inspiration to me. I first came across her on Instagram, where I have watched her place Somalian food in the spotlight through engaging and educational videos, social media posts, and writing in a refreshing, relevant way that never sacrifices her sense of place.
Born in Mogadishu, Hawa fled to Kenya with her family during the civil war, where they lived for three years, one of which was spent in a refugee camp. When the opportunity arose for Hawa, then aged seven, to travel to Seattle with a group of refugees, her mother decided to send her eldest daughter to the United States ahead of the rest of the family. But visa issues meant it would be 15 years before the family would finally reunite, and Hawa had to adapt to life in a foreign country on her own.
But adapt she did – seizing every opportunity that came her way. After completing high school, Hawa started working as a model and moved to New York. She also bought a plane ticket to visit Norway, where her family had finally settled. Once reunited with her mother, who had opened two shops in Oslo, they began to cook together once more, and Hawa reconnected with her Somali food heritage.
In 2015, Hawa founded Basbaas Foods (basbaasfoods.com), a range of condiments and sauces based on her childhood food memories. Basbaas (which means “chilli pepper” in Somali) products include a smoky, fruity tamarind date sauce and a tangy, spicy coconut coriander chutney, which are handmade in small batches in the Hudson Valley in the USA.
Our shared connections with the women in our lives drew me to Hawa, as well as the desire to use our respective platforms to shine a light on those whose stories are not often told. Discovering other food practitioners who embrace their foundations and understand the importance of these food heirlooms is not only inspiring, but also infectious. Which is why I literally squealed out loud when I discovered that Hawa had published her first cookbook, In Bibi’s Kitchen: The Recipes and Stories of Grandmothers from the eight African Continents that touch the Indian Ocean.
It’s an exceptionally curated cookbook/travelogue that explores themes of unconditional love, war, loss, displacement and unbreakable family ties through delicious recipes, photography and thoughtful writing. By allowing us into the kitchens of the bibis (grandmothers)
“ULTIMATELY, MY GOAL IS TO USE FOOD AS A GATEWAY INTO CULTURE – TO BUILD LONGER TABLES,
from Tanzania, Eritrea, South Africa, Kenya, Zanzibar, Somalia, Comoros and Mozambique, Hawa and her team celebrate the elderly black women, the home cooks, who have forged our food identities but are seldom afforded a platform to speak. In Eritrea, for example, Ma Abeba shares her recipe for firfir
(injera cooked with meat, tomato and onions), in South Africa, Ma Khanyisa offers her recipe for imifino, in Kenya, Ma Kauthar shares hers for chicken biryani…
There is something so soulful and deeply relatable about the portraits of these incredible women, expertly taken on location by Kenyan photo-journalist Khadija M. Farah. The food, too, is not a brushed-up portrayal of African dishes, but is prepared and served as naturally as it always has been.
This is a book we have so desperately needed, a language we need to hear spoken more often – one of the simple science, glamour and audacity of black cooking. And it’s brought to us by a courageous, talented African woman who I couldn’t wait to speak to and ask all the questions I’ve wanted to while following her journey online.
What was it like to leave your family at such a tender age and adapt to life in America?
When I left Kenya in 1993 my mom was in her early twenties with five small children. I was doing what was expected of me. As an African woman, you don’t question your mother, especially as a Muslim Somali. You’re told America is the land of opportunity and that the floodgates will open for you when you get there. But America in the 90s, especially in the inner city, wasn’t roses at my feet. I didn’t speak a word of English. I wore a hijab. So I found refuge by befriending other immigrants. My first friends were Cambodian, Vietnamese and Russian. It was weird because we couldn’t talk to each other. But we had a common bond in that we were different, so we stuck together.
Community as a concept supports this book on quite an architectural level. How has your relationship with food ebbed and flowed based on the different communities you have been welcomed into?
Growing up in the US, one of the ways that I always felt loved was being fed by my friends’ parents. I really depended on the mercy of strangers and that meant having to sit at tables with people who didn’t have the same background as me. The one thing that I have taken away from my childhood is that I can connect with people over food at any table. It’s really been the backbone of what I call my global community. I can to go to Slovenia and call up my friend and know she will meet me at the airport. I am able to go to Cape Town alone and it’s home. We’re not a community for a moment but for a lifetime.
Breakthrough African food brands like Basbaas Foods are helping to bridge a cultural gap by allowing immigrants to access significant connections to home. How do you envision more food workers pulling together to help capture food histories from around the world?
You have to be very clear on what your identity is. If you’re not, you need to know how you’re going to get to a place of discovery. I use food as a tool to unpack some of my identity, to peel back the layers of who I am. Then, when I’m making food, I think who is it for? Am I telling stories to a Western audience about the narratives that have been told on our behalf ? Am I changing that rhetoric? Am I allowing food to be used as a gateway into my culture? Ultimately, my goal is to use food as a gateway into culture, to invoke conversation, to build longer tables and shorter fences. I do that by having a consumer business, writing books, being on TV and developing recipes that are adaptable and a reflection of home.
I recently wrote about my grandmother and felt it was important to touch on the role that scarcity plays in food narratives across the continent. It’s the way of eating to survive. In what ways has food scarcity played a role in your current relationship with food?
When I am developing recipes I try to do it from the perspective of the spices found in the country I am writing about. So if I’m talking about a South African dish and I want to have a bigger conversation about braaiing, I talk about what is used when grilling in South Africa. What can I do in my kitchen to enhance that flavour and invoke that memory? It can be as simple as using smoked paprika. Some people are really good at writing luxurious recipes that are decadent and take eight hours to make. I try to write from the perspective of my grandmother who had ten kids. Ultimately she wanted to put food on the table. It wasn’t fancy, and the book represents that. A lot of the food is vegan, a lot of it is vegetarian, a lot of it is from the land, a lot of it is grain protein that isn’t reflective of the Western diet. I try to stay true to that. Even if it’s just chickpeas with carrots and red onions. What makes that special is spicing it with bere-bere, which automatically invokes feelings of Ethiopia and Eritrea.
What was Julia Turshen’s role in creating the book?
I sent her a text one day saying, “Hey
I’m gonna start working on this project based on the Indian Ocean that’s from the perspective of Africans. Would love to talk to you about it.” She wrote back:
“Oh my god Hawa, I would love to help, however I can’t.” So when I did get her to come on board, it was later on, to help with the structure of the book.
What people don’t tell you is that certain people get cookbook deals because they have the experience and the network. I knew that for my very first cookbook, I would need to be supported by someone who had done one before.
Khadija M. Farah’s photographs capture an unapologetic tale of real black food. How did you set the women you were profiling at ease in order to capture their stories and food authentically?
When I initially wanted to use Khadija, I was told “no”. But I couldn’t use anyone else. Even if it took me another five years
“One of the ways that I felt loved was being fed by my friends’ parents”
– Hawa Hassan
to get a deal for this book, I was adamant about having a Somali, American, Kenyan, Muslim team. Khadija had travelled photographing women in war, so I knew that the way she shot was like a fly on the wall. She has a very settled energy. She’s a documentary photographer. Her style lent itself to the project by allowing the bibis to be the rock stars that they are every day. Some stories are two pages long because the grandmother kept talking. Some are short because the grandmother only wanted to answer one question. Giving room to these women without altering their language to glamorise what they said was important.
What lessons from this project have stood out for you?
The responses from the women when I asked them what they value the most has left an imprint on me. Their answers were never about money or big careers or listing the countries they had been to. Every single one of them said “my children”. That was important to me because these are women who have lived three times longer than me and have seen the world, but the thing that they are the most proud of is the relationships they have with their children. They spoke of the importance of utilising time and valuing things for what they are instead of waiting. I think my life has changed in the way I interact with people. When I was making the book, I was stressed and occupied with wanting to make it perfect. The more I got into it, the more I realised the importance of mindfulness. The only thing that’s real is the legacies we’ll leave behind, how we spend our time and who we invest it in. That’s what these women have taught me.
“My conversation with Hawa and the time I spent buried in her book sparked new recipe ideas inspired by the stories of the bibis, as well as by my own grandmother and mother – with my own twists of course.” – Khanya
KENYA
POLENTA ORANGE CAKE
“This lovely tea cake is a nod to Ma Kauthar’s delicious Kenyan basboosa (semolina cake), a deliciously syrupy, dense cake which uses semolina to achieve a toothsome, nutty texture. I've made a classic dessert using polenta, which is similar in texture.”
Serves 6
EASY
GREAT VALUE Preparation: 25 minutes Baking: 45 minutes
butter 200 g brown sugar 200 g free-range eggs 3 vanilla extract 1t
Woolworths ground macadamia nuts 200 g polenta 100 g oranges 2, one zested and one thinly sliced orange essence 1t baking powder 1t
1 Preheat the oven to 180°C. Grease a 20 cm springform cake tin and line the bottom and sides with baking paper. Grease the paper. 2 Using an electric beater, beat the butter and sugar in a large bowl until pale. Whisk in the eggs one by one, then stir in the vanilla. 3 In a small bowl, combine the ground macadamia nuts, polenta, orange zest, orange essence and baking powder, then stir into the egg mixture. 4 Line the bottom of the cake tin with a sprinkling of brown sugar and top with the orange slices. Pour the batter into the tin and bake for 45 minutes, or until golden brown and the cake is coming away slightly from the sides of the tin.
5 Allow the cake to cool in the tin for
5–10 minutes, then remove from the tin. Serve warm.
WHEAT- AND GLUTEN-FREE