Rescuing our recipes: Preserving Palestinian culture in times of war
As Palestine is witnessing another Nakba, what is the fate of its gastronomy?
The following was originally published in the Palestine in America magazine Deluxe Food Edition. Order a print or digital copy to support the only Palestinian magazine in the United States.
During the 1948 Nakba, more than 750,000 Palestinians were displaced from their villages and cities. More than 500 Palestinian villages were completely destroyed. Afterward, 150,000 of those displaced remained in areas claimed by Israel, and about 30,000 lived in areas that would become a part of the Palestinian state (the West Bank and Gaza Strip). The majority — 570,000 — were externally displaced in neighboring and other countries.
Despite this ethnic cleansing during the Nakba and that which followed only 19 years later during the Naksa in 1967, in which around 400,000 Palestinians were displaced, Palestinian cuisine has upheld its identity. Displaced Palestinians continue to practice their gastronomy 76 years after the Tantura Massacre. The Israeli ethnic cleansing agenda started by the terrorist Israeli Haganah group and continued with terrorism from the Israel “Defense” Forces has failed to wipe the Palestinians from the map and assimilate them into other cultures and ethnicities. One hallmark of that Palestinian resistance is the preservation of its food.
Palestinians have not forgotten their olives, olive oil, figs, sumac, warak dawali/warak ‘enab (grape leaves), za’atar, taboun and shraak (bread), or their Nabulsi cheese. Palestinians in the diaspora still cook with olive oil sourced from their homeland. Relatives and friends fill their bags with upcycled plastic bottles filled with preserved grape leaves and others with olives. Plastic bags with za’atar, sumac, cheese, and other goodies are all packed tightly. Custom officers look at each other confused when checking my bags at the airport. They do not understand why the strange olive-skinned person pleads with them to not throw these items away. They do not understand the interdependent relationship between Palestinians and a plastic bottle of olives. Very few understand that the ingredients from Palestine carry with them a sentiment that cannot be replaced.
From Chile to the U.S., Palestinians have formed communities, opened restaurants and markets, imported ingredients from their homeland, and continued the legacy of the Palestinian kitchen. Palestinian students studying abroad bring their ingredients with them and, with some directions from their mothers on video calls, bring their family recipes to life.
In an interview, Palestinian chef Fadi Kattan emphasized the importance of Palestinian hospitality, especially in the diaspora. Palestinians love having guests over and entertaining them with Palestinian delicacies. Using food to connect with others and introduce them to our culture is easy, as everyone enjoys a good meal. Very few can resist a mouth-watering maqluba. Kattan said if each Palestinian in the diaspora (there are an estimated 7.4 million) invites people over for a Palestinian meal, that would have a large impact on the international community.
Kattan shared the story of a visitor from Chile that stopped in his restaurant, Fawda, in Bethlehem. They asked for kunafa, and though Kattan did not serve the dessert at his restaurant, he brought him Nabulsi kunafa — the kunafa the majority of Palestinians know and eat. The visitor said the dish was not what he expected, so Kattan asked him to describe what he was looking for.
“Long vermicelli with cinnamon, syrup, and walnuts,” Kattan recalled, saying he then realized what the visitor was describing. ”That is the kunafa that my grandparents used to make. Bethlehem kunafa, called Sharwat — meaning dripping — because the syrup dripped as you ate it.”
This recipe is not commonly known by the majority of Palestinians as kunafa, but it lives on in the diaspora in Chile because Palestinians there have preserved it.
“And this is not specific to Palestinians,” Kattan said. “[In] any diaspora in the world, you may lose the language because you are trying to integrate into a new society. You may lose the names sometimes; the family names adapt to a local language. But it is very rare you lose the food because the food is the essence of … your family identity.”
Unfortunately, Fawda closed after COVID-19. During the height of the pandemic, Kattan began making recipes that later became his cookbook, “Bethlehem: A Celebration of Palestinian Food.” In his book, Kattan shares the food and recipes he ate growing up in Bethlehem, along with recipes of Palestine he wants to celebrate.
Kattan’s book was released by the publisher in May 2024, during the genocide. He said this contradicts the idea of his book — to celebrate Palestinian recipes and identity — as these same people are subjected to a live-streamed 21st-century holocaust. His book invites people to visit Bethlehem and experience the food culture that Kattan grew up with, yet there is no room for celebration of cuisine now as Israel’s relentless attacks have left Palestinians in Gaza with little to no food.
Since Oct. 7, 2023, the food sources in Gaza are scarce. People do not have the luxury to choose what to eat; they make use of what is available and what they can afford. They also harvest from plants and wild shrubs when nothing else is available.
Hamada Shaqoura and Mona Zahed are two examples in a sea of people resisting the genocide in Gaza through food. Shaqoura was a food vlogger while Zahed owned her own business and used social media to promote it before the war began. Things have drastically changed for both of them since.
Shaqoura is known as Hamada Shoo online with over half a million followers on Instagram. Six months into the war, he began cooking for children in the refugee camps with a serious expression on his face. The humanitarian food situation that Shaqoura described to Palestine in America through WhatsApp on Nov. 19, 2024, was very dire.
“There was a scarcity of food supplies; only canned food was available, so I had the idea of making new and delicious recipes using the canned food and aid that was available,” Shaqoura said.
With the limited options in Gaza, Palestinians there do not have the luxury of deciding on what to eat; they must do as Shaqoura does: Whip up dishes using what they have that day, even if it is just a soup made from canned vegetables and tomato paste.
Shaqoura teamed up with several organizations to continue his work in refugee camps, such as the World Central Kitchen, Heal Palestine, and Watermelon Relief. But working on the ground in Gaza is a consistent uphill battle.
Despite the impossible situations Gazans face, they refuse to give up their culture and cuisine. With very limited resources, people such as Shaqoura are still cooking traditional and — in turn comforting — meals.
“We still make our traditional Palestinian recipes because our food is special, but sadly, the recipe is always incomplete and missing a few ingredients,” Shaqoura explained to Palestine in America. “I always try to look for replacements for what is missing from the markets even if I have to make it from scratch, or I would change the recipe and make a recipe from what is available.”
Zahed is resisting the famine and genocide in Gaza by writing a new cookbook called “Tabkha: Recipes under the Rubble.” She began compiling the recipes after a friend and chef from Japan suggested the idea to her. As the book idea and war expanded, soon Zahed was finishing the book from within her tent.
“At the moment, we are living in a situation that is almost a complete famine. We have no options for what we eat. The housewife struggles to prepare healthy food with the minimum cost because most of what is available is canned food and most of the ingredients to cook are not available,” Zahed told Palestine in America.
“In my book, I included the alternative ingredients we use for recipes during the war. There are some things that we newly learned, and there are others that we have learned from our grandparents (that have lived through the Nakba) and we remembered it and revived them.”
‘Vines don’t grow in the desert’
While Palestinians in Gaza are being deprived of making their historically delicious meals from the comfort of their homes with the necessary ingredients, Zionists across the world are appropriating Palestinian food and claiming it as their own.
Kattan said that he does not mind anyone — even an Israeli chef — cooking Palestinian food, as long as it is labeled correctly. But that hasn’t been the case.
“Israel began appropriating our food very systematically,” Kattan explained. A Zionist cookbook titled “How to Cook in Palestine” published in the 1930s for the new colonizers coming from Europe is just one example of this systematic appropriation.
“Maqluba is not Israeli, freekeh is not Israeli,” Kattan said. “Musabahha is labeled as Israeli on the menus of several restaurants. Musabahha is an Arabic word that comes from the word ‘yasbah,’ meaning swims because the chickpeas are swimming in the tahini sauce. Can we at least acknowledge that this is an Arabic word and that it is a Palestinian dish?”
Kattan mentioned the incident that happened in 2021 when Miss Universe contestants were in Israel and dressed in the Palestinian thobe and were rolling vine leaves in a Bedouin Palestinian village in the desert as a PR stunt. “Didn’t anyone stop and think that vines don’t grow in the desert?”
Kattan also pointed out the importance of calling Palestinian food as it is. He said that the terms going around to describe it as “Mediterranean”, “Levantine”, and “Middle Eastern” are dangerous.
“We need to set the record clear: There is no Israeli cuisine,” Kattan said. “There were Palestinian Jews living in Palestine before the Zionists created this bizarre thing where people are defined by their ethno-religious identity.”
Kattan said that he was not a chef when his grandmother died and regrets not spending time learning her recipes and recording them and encourages Palestinians, now more than ever, to record their family recipes. He said that we should not pressure our grandmothers to give us recipes in metric units as it was common to use words like ‘kamsha’ or ‘rasha,’ which mean handful and a sprinkle respectively. He said to record the recipes as they are, and then convert them to metric units if necessary.
The future of Palestinian Gastronomy
With Zahed documenting Palestinian recipes and culture amidst the shelling in her tent, Shaqoura creatively finding alternative ingredients to cook for the children of Gaza, and Kattan sharing Palestinian recipes with the world, Palestinian recipes will not be disappearing any time soon. As 2.2 million Palestinians in Gaza are being forced into displacement, famine, and are deliberately exterminated when going to receive the trickle of aid that comes into the strip, preserving the Palestinian culture and identity through the Palestinian kitchen has become more important than ever before. Cooking, eating, and sharing Palestinian food has become a form of resilience; get into your kitchens, take out your pots, and cook for Palestine.
Thank you so much for this piece, Lama. This was a wonderfully informative article, and it shows that the Palestinians and Palestinian culture are incredibly resilient. Despite decades of displacement, occupation, and hardship, their art, stories, and traditions continue to thrive. It’s a powerful reminder that culture is not just a reflection of identity, as it represents resistance, survival, and hope ♥️.
Thank you, Lama. This piece is wonderfully informative and really speaks to the importance of food to a culture.