War Maqlouba

“What follows is a war recipe made with the bare minimum ingredients including how journalists have gathered the food during genocide. It is realistic fiction.”

Buzz! Buzz! Buzz! Buzz! Bayan woke up to several Whatsapp notifications on the group “Gaza Journalists Stand Strong” and jolted up quickly from the mat, which was now damp from last night’s rain that seeped into her tent. She would have to air it out before she went out to report today in addition to standing in a line to fill up a tank of water for washing her clothes — should more rain not drench her laundry. 

Bayan braced herself to receive the worst news she might get. The group has been losing its members to Israel’s genocide of Palestinians. Journalists and media workers have become primary targets of the Israeli occupation forces, as Palestine in America reported in its Journalism Edition. 129  members in the group have sent their last messages during the past year and a month. 129  journalists now reporting to God the atrocious ways they and their people have been killed. 

Bayan squinted at her dimmed screen while her phone was still charged.

 “Who has a carrot?” “I have half a potato.” 

Bayan was used to seeing these messages in the group chat. When someone wants to cook in Gaza, they gather the ingredients they need from over 20 friends or family members, and most of the time they cook with half of the ingredients missing and adding the word war to each dish: War Rumaniyya, War Musakhan, War Mahshi. Everything in Gaza is now tied to war and genocide; food and the lack of it is no exception. 

The new recipes of Gaza have become similar to the “depression” recipes that were modified in the United States in the 1930s during the Great Depression. In 2007 came the recession recipes, but these are too luxurious to be compared with the war recipes of Gaza. 

“Does anyone have something that makes a buck buck buckeek sound?” someone in the group sent hoping to find a chicken somewhere. “No, but I have half a chicken stock cube,” another replied. “At least it used to make a buck buck buckeek sound,” the requester said. It will do.”

Bayan had gotten a small bag of wood that was distributed to each tent in the camp she was staying in. 

“I have wood. What is the meal?” she asked, “Maqlouba,” an answer came. “WAR Maqlouba,” another reply came in to correct the first. “Why so serious?” another chat member joked. 

We have not stooped down to the level of mass media outlets; we do not manipulate headlines,” Bayan answered. “Be careful, tomorrow we will be in the CNN headlines: ‘Journalists in Gaza break the Guinness Records for the biggest Maqlouba,’” her colleague Hanadi replied jokingly.

“I will be the first to respond with the correct headlines: ‘Journalists in Gaza break the Guinness Records for the Maqlouba with the least ingredients,’” Bayan typed. “I wonder if Maqlouba ever realized that it would become a war version and would be stripped of all its rich textures and rich flavors,” Bayan wrote in the chat. “But, then did any of us think that we would be stripped of our families, houses, and lives without even the basic human rights?” she replied to her own thoughts, “Neither does our food have flavour nor do our lives.” 

After gathering bits and pieces of ingredients from journalists in Gaza — many of them going on literal scavenger hunts with their families and friends, trading e-sim cards for others, and scouring the depleted markets for the rest — they gathered outside Bayan’s tent and lit the fire at an attempt to prepare a dish that faintly resembled maqlouba. What follows is a recipe that includes how the reporters gathered the food.  

War Maqlouba

Ingredients:

1/2 a head cauliflower 

2 small potatoes 

1 clove garlic

1 cup rice (mug) 

1/4 cup syrig (vegetable oil) 

1/2 cube chicken stock

1 tablespoon salt

1/2 tablespoon black pepper

1/2 teaspoon cumin

1/2 teaspoon allspice 

Recipe: 

1. Hanadi had brought with her a pot that she had salvaged from under the rubble when their entire neigborhood had been bombed by Israel. She lost family members, neighbors, friends, and acquaintances. The pot was her mother’s and it was passed down to her mother when she got married by her grandmother, and now it was the only thing Hanadi had to remember her family by. In the pot, she added a cup of water from the “drinking” water that Bayan had stood three hours in a line that morning to get. As the water boiled, the water vapor fell from its sides resembling tears. The pot had witnessed so much that it needed to cry, and Hanadi cried with it. 

2. Hazem added into the crying pot half a chicken stock cube. He received it as a token of thanks from a family with an injured baby he helped to get to the hospital with his press car. He decided early on that he could not leave his people to bleed to death when ambulances were not able to enter; thousands of times, he has had to put down his camera, and carry an injured child, woman, or man to the hospital. Humanity came first and foremost.

3. Falastin soaked the cup of rice she brought with warm water for 20 minutes to prepare it for cooking. She went to the room her aunts were sharing with other forcibly displaced women in a United Nations Relief and Works Agency school, and got 1/4 of a cup from each to get a whole cup for their maqlouba. Each of her aunts had a whole family to feed and were at the last of their resources and nobody knew when Israel would allow the food and aid trucks in, so they could not spare any more.  

4. Mira cut the cauliflower into smaller pieces with her bare hands. A farmer gave her the cauliflower when she was going home from reporting a bombing at a school. “Your face is yellow.” he said. “ You need vegetables, you need nutrients.” He handed her a cauliflower. While she was walking, she saw two kids. One that was about 2 years old, said, “Wow a cauliflower. We have not eaten that since…I can’t remember since when.” Mira cut half the cauliflower with her hands and handed it to the young boy. 

5. Waleed brought two small potatoes from the potatoes they had grown when they were displaced during the war. His father had brought home a kilo of potatoes one day when some local produce started reaching the new makeshift markets in the streets. That day Waleed’s young siblings were excited and thought that they would have potatoes for lunch, but Waleed’s dad told them that these were for them to grow in the land that had been cleared next to where they were staying. He kept the potatoes until they sprouted and then with the help of Waleed they dug the land and buried the potatoes. When they were displaced five more times, Waleed’s dad dug up the potatoes, and grew them next to their new “home”. They now heavily depended on the potatoes for survival, and also distributed the remainder of the harvest to their family, friends, and neighbors. They always ate small potatoes because they never had the luxury to wait any longer. Waleed cut the potatoes into thin circles getting them ready to be fried. 

6. Mo’min brought 1/4 cup of used vegetable oil that his family used to fry falafel for their small stall. They could not always get new oil so they strained the old oil and reused it until it became too dark to see the food fried in it. Mo’min put the oil in a frying pan on a new fire and put the potatoes and cauliflower in at the same time, rather than frying one before the other as they would normally do. If Mo’min had done that, the first one would soak up all the oil and there would not be any left for the other. 

7.Hanadi emptied the stock into a bowl and then placed the fried potatoes at the bottom of her pot and then the cauliflower. Falastin then strained the soaked rice and added it to the pot on top of the vegetables. Bayan then added the salt, pepper, cumin and allspice to the rice. Hazem then poured the chicken stock slowly onto the rice. Waleed placed a chipped plate on top of the rice to weigh it down. Hanadi did not find the cover of the pot in the rubble of her home, so they had to use a tin sidr (circular pan).

8. When there was no longer the sound of water boiling in the pot, Mira removed the sidr and used a fork to remove the plate then took a bite of the rice. “Jahez,” she said — ready. Mo’min took the sidr and put it on the mouth of the pot and flipped the pot upside down. They collectively hit the bottom of the pot with their hands. Bayan then removed the pot slowly to have the maqlouba in one piece like a cake.

They began the usual bickering for the rice and vegetables that caramelized at the bottom of the pot, and then they ate their War Maqlouba without salad and no yogurt, two sides that would normally accompany a maqlouba. A side of pickles and olives was also out of the question. 

During the meal, all their phones beeped at the same time, it was the WhatsApp group; 129 now. Their eyes locked, they put on their press jackets hurryingly, held back their tears, and headed out not knowing if they would make it back alive.