Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 00:00:10 I think a lot about cookbooks and how they preserve memory. The materiality of a book is interesting, who it includes and who it excludes, how it's changed over time. Welcome to knowledge in its producers. A limited series from made dad produced by me and a monk. In each episode, we'll be talking to people who are at the forefront of knowledge production, typically away from traditional power structures of education. We'll be talking to people who curate, who edit, who run research centers, who write and more, my field is Islamic studies, and we'll be talking to people who fit into the study of Islam and the Muslim majority world. But that doesn't mean they'll be Muslim themselves. It just means we don't have perfect terms for describing this big intersecting world. Not yet. The goal is to get a wide variety of people talking about different ways of accessing history, materiality ideas, and more to uplift the people we're interviewing and to inspire you today.
Speaker 1 00:01:04 We're talking to Sam DMI and Tara Wigley who collaborated on the 20, 20 Palestinian cookbook. Felician what I find most interesting of Tian is how it documents labors by going into the makers of different ingredient stories. So you get a sense of the economies behind the food, as well as some recipes. So I always have an icebreaker question and I've been tailoring them to who I ask the question. Mm-hmm <affirmative> um, so my question for you guys is what is your favorite kitchen tool, which I realize is like asking you to pick a favorite child. Maybe
Speaker 2 00:01:41 <laugh> not for me, I've got my favorite child and my favorite kitchen tool. Um, yeah, for me, it's gotta be the, the long tos cause I'm obsessed with Charing O jeans directly on the plane. Um, so they're just super useful for, for turning them over in the flame. So that's what I would take to my desert island
Speaker 3 00:02:00 At the moment. It's a garlic pressure because I find it really, really kind of, um, irritating when you have to take a knife and a Cho board for one glove, garlic, that first require I'm okay with, you know, peeling the, the, the, the garlic, but chopping it. It's, uh, first of all, it, it takes a long time to chop it and I just need garlic pressure and seconds.
Speaker 2 00:02:28 I do cause I do it in a EST and water. Do you know you don't, you don't use a EST and water Sammy?
Speaker 3 00:02:33 Uh, no garlic brush.
Speaker 2 00:02:35 I loved it with a bit of silks. Okay. Oh, controversial.
Speaker 1 00:02:39 Yeah. I, um, I feel like my grandmother would slap me if I told her I used a garlic press, but my hands. Do your hands burn Sammy when you handle lots of garlic?
Speaker 3 00:02:49 Uh, no, no. I, uh, I actually like mind
Speaker 2 00:02:52 Do when I handle lots of chili, which is a problem for making cha
Speaker 3 00:02:55 Yeah. Chili, or if you do like artichokes or ARA or stuff like that, that's got a bit kind of, uh, stinging almost like liquid to it then. Yeah, it burns, but, uh, garlic, no,
Speaker 2 00:03:09 I have it with tomatoes and red pepper actually. So maybe everyone's just got their own color of things.
Speaker 3 00:03:13 Oh,
Speaker 1 00:03:14 I think everyone has like their own little sensitivities.
Speaker 2 00:03:17 If I rings, wedged on my, of just quietly swelling up I chilis or the heat and yesterday of,
Speaker 1 00:03:38 So I wanna congratulate you guys on the book. It's really stunning. I have the American edition, which of course has the lettuce salad on the front, which I think was an interesting choice. I counted it to the fact that, um, semi, have you ever been to the lettuce festival in Philistine? Oh,
Speaker 3 00:03:52 I, uh, yes, once that's very it's, it's like being in a kind of mad world <laugh> they do also, um, cauliflower festival as well, somewhere. My sister said that, you know, they just celebrate their organic cauliflower somewhere in Palestine and, um, they, they do a festival for it. Yeah. But, uh, you know, I'm, I'm in Italy, in NOIA and they have festival for anything.
Speaker 2 00:04:19 <laugh>
Speaker 3 00:04:21 A place called Canara a festival for onions and another place have a festival for snails and go on and on and on every, every little village have a festival for something
Speaker 2 00:04:35 <laugh>, I, I love the recipe on the, um, on the cover and I think it's really, I think it looks beautiful and it's one of my favorite recipes, but I think it's also really showcases kind of some of what we're trying to do with some of the recipes and the book in terms of taking ingredients that are sort of familiar, but sort of presenting them in, in quite a sort of bold new way. So I think it's a really, a really kind exciting dish to showcase.
Speaker 1 00:04:58 Yeah. That's what I thought when I saw the book for the first time. Cause I'd only seen the British editions. Yeah. Um, the cover and I got the American edition in the mail. I was struck by it because I mean exactly what I just said about the festival. It, we were taught as kids that Huss that lettuce is such a big, you know, it's a big part of being Palestinian. If you eat your Bulgar salads on like a leaf of lettuce, it's kind of this, I mean, my dad used to say that you could always tell who the Palestinian at the table was when there's a big bowl of the, because they reach
Speaker 2 00:05:29 For the lettuce. Yeah. I'm Palestinian after all Sammy,
Speaker 3 00:05:34 Tara also eats like that. I mean, she, she, she uses
Speaker 2 00:05:37 Yeah. Use, I use, I always use like, and sort of love
Speaker 3 00:05:45 Totally food and I totally understand it. I mean, it's kinda, uh, it makes sense. And also it's a good, uh, vessel to, to use, to handle food without touching the food. But we, we didn't really have lettuce so much at home. I mean, the only time we, we had lettuces in the summer in the season and they just eat it, like it's kind of, uh, cucumber or an apple. So they don't, they don't really use it in salads and stuff like that.
Speaker 1 00:06:12 That was also something my father told us when we moved abroad from Philistine, actually he said that you could always tell who the Palestinian kid on the playground was. Um, mostly like me and my brother, because we were eating the cucumber, the oh yeah. Like it was a, a lollipop. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:06:27 <laugh>
Speaker 1 00:06:27 Just crunch into it. Yeah. Um, I think there's, it's, it's the same with our fruit and our produce. We eat it before we eat, it gets home. So, I mean, you've referenced the fact that Tara has sort of become part of this world. And I like how, in the introduction to the book, you set it up as you know, that you two have very different roles in the book. So can you break that down for me a bit, maybe Tara, you could go first.
Speaker 2 00:06:52 Um, yeah, so completely different roles and, and kind of different journeys towards this cuisine. So for Sammy, it's clearly a love letter home and a journey back to the, the food and the people in the place that, that makes him who he is and that he grew up with. So, um, he bought all of that. And for me it was an adventure into a new cuisine that I only discovered when I started with LAN 10 years ago, but the Palestinian food, my journey Amy started three or four years ago. So it was, it was kind of really healthy, sort of useful dynamic sort of, sort of looking at things from, from, uh, from different. And then, and then there's things that I was able to kind of see and observe as an outsider that Sammy who's so kind of rooted to the, to the people in the place instead of just living it, it's just a very, very different role.
Speaker 2 00:07:46 So there was that whole side to it, but then also the recipe testing and re recipe development. You know, we did the recipes in the test kitchen in, in Camden, um, along with, uh, another chef and Jo time was around and Sammy and me, and, and we're all kind of bringing our different backgrounds to, to this dish and kind of what we want from it. And Sam initially was, had a very, uh, traditional list of recipes that he wanted to include in the book. And then over the course of two years of, of developing it, some of them remained, but, but then a lot of the other shifted and changed and developed, and it was a sort of every recipe was a process and, and a journey in itself.
Speaker 1 00:08:23 So Sammy, what was it like going on this journey? I know you've written about Palestinian foods before in different capacities mm-hmm <affirmative>, but what was, what was this journey like for you?
Speaker 3 00:08:33 I mean, it, it's a very personal, uh, kind of journey. It's, uh, something that, uh, I, I kind of wanted to do for many years. I mean, I left, I left home when I was 17 and then, you know, I left the country when I was 30 and I never kind of went back or thought about or going back. And, but I kind of appreciate the whole fact that, you know, the food, the people, the place that I grew up in my family, and it was just kind of me going back and cherishing and also thanking all of that, you know, the food, the place, the, the landscape we met also new people that we, we haven't, I mean, I didn't know from, from before and it a wonderful thing because Palestinians are so kind of hospitality and kind of welcoming and they they're so warm and make you kind of part of them. But what Tara said, it, it was kind of true because I went back to a very kind of, uh, known things and, uh, obvious from, you know, the, the, the, the, the struggle to the way people talk to. And Tara will pick on little thing that, for me, that like, obvious, like, uh, she, Tara will tell you probably the stories about the SHK and the ice cream that I had in paper where it's kinda yes.
Speaker 1 00:10:02 The
Speaker 3 00:10:02 Ice cream. Yeah. The, the, the, the, the whole kind of, uh, me going back home, it was, uh, it was good that there, there are another true pair of eyes that can actually see things in, from a different angle, from different kind of, uh, point of view, uh, which is compliment the whole kind of experience. But, but yeah, I mean, yeah, it was, it was a good, it was a good journey for, for, you know, for, for both of us, because we also had to learn how to be with each other. And it's a different kinda, it was a different, uh, environment for, for both of us, but it still work as well.
Speaker 2 00:10:40 Yeah. And we were, we were lucky that we had the, we had the time, you know, we had, we had two years to write this book and we journeyed there together three times. And I went another couple of times by myself. And so we really had that. It was, it was just a real privilege not to feel like we were kind of dropping in and out and kind of getting the story. This is, these are kind of people in places we hung out with. They were sort of number of occasions that that was just a really lovely thing to kinda have that time.
Speaker 1 00:11:06 Yeah. I just wanna reference the, um, I opened the book and almost immediately actually, I got to the ice cream page where the story of, of Sammy and the ice cream is, and it's, uh, it's lovely. Um, I'll read a couple of lines from it after supper and HAA one night on our travels, Sammy softed by an ice cream shop for something sweet opting for what Tata thought was the least delicious option, the hallucinogenic pink bubble come flavored, ice cream. <laugh> Sammy proceeded to skip happily down memory lane, remembering the holiday treats of his childhood. I love that so much.
Speaker 2 00:11:40 Yeah. But there, there was so many incidents like that. And, and, you know, we were such a team and such a kind of, we were on such often on the same journey, but then there'd be real moments. Uh, so the ice cream, another one was watching Sammy eating can in Annapolis. And another one was sh lings in, in the, um, in the refugee camp, outside Bethlehem. But with the can, for example, um, you know, watching Sam kind eat sort more than I would sort of consume in a, he would treat to, he just sort, he retreats back to this moment of like pure Palestinian childhoods and every table in this little cafe, tiny, tiny kinda table with four micro tables. There's, there's people who could be savvy kind of 40, 40 years ago sitting there either boys by themselves or, or sort of brother and sister, or with their parents or, or, or just kind people on their break. And, uh, as an outsider thinking, this is just something I can, I can observe. I will never, this will never part of this is this, this level of sugar and beyond comprehension.
Speaker 3 00:12:46 It is obvious. It's like, you know, this is kind of, if you come from the middle east and you don't love something is wrong with you <laugh> or, um, yeah, I chose the, the, the bubble come because of course it's stacky, but this is the, the, you know, going back to memory lane and going to childhood. And of course I would choose it. And I, I just remember, Tara's face, like, what are you doing? Why are you eating this stuff? And you, you know, you go, you, you go to, and you go the best in. And of course, he's like, you know, you see flashes of your life kind of passing through with, with every bite that you have.
Speaker 2 00:13:31 Sammy had two 50 grams, but our friend who was driving us had 500 grams of this stuff and she just put it away just like a demon. It was impressive. I was in awe.
Speaker 3 00:13:40 Yeah, but she's young
Speaker 1 00:13:46 Two 50 grams is a lot though. Half a kilo though. It's um,
Speaker 3 00:13:50 I remember with my, um, a friend NASA, when we were kids, we used to sit and have each half a kilo and you know, there's no running away from it. You just order it and you have to eat it. You can't leave it behind. And you, you never know when you're gonna get another half a kilo of cafe.
Speaker 2 00:14:08 <laugh> also the way, the way that Royal used to drive, she always used to drive quite quickly. And she used to take speed bumps at quite a terrifying rate. But after the half a kilo of can, she was going double speed. It was even more terrifying, all that after me. Oh my God.
Speaker 3 00:14:23 <laugh>
Speaker 1 00:14:24 Um, I don't know. And if, if Sammy, if you've ever heard this expression, if it's a newer one, my parents would always tell me when I ate a lot of anything, especially sweets, um, ne
Speaker 3 00:14:35 Oh, yeah,
Speaker 1 00:14:36 Yeah. It's like you eat well
Speaker 3 00:14:39 Now they call me fat. <laugh> now that the, yeah, the friend, the family, they just kind of tease each other. So like, stop eating it. You're getting your look at your belly, all these things. It's just teasing each other all the time. But, you know, I mean, Arabs love, love, sweet know, do also now all the sweet drinks as well and horrible, but they love, they love the, the sugar.
Speaker 1 00:15:09 It's funny. Yeah. It's these sweet drinks that get me back to childhood things like Tama Hindi, or like <inaudible>, um, those are the things that I think of when I think of my childhood. And also funnily enough, I think Arabs have a good appreciation for bitter. Um, like, well, actually, no, because my parents gave me tea. They always gave it to me with sugar, but coffee is another sort of big part of our cultures,
Speaker 2 00:15:32 But also just savory. Cause I'm in one, my, one of my favorite meals in, in the Palestinian cuisine is breakfast. This kind of complete slavery banquet and yeah, just this spread of pickles and cheese and hummus and olive and Z. And that for me is just delicious. But, and I still have that sort of breakfast here. My kids look at me like I'm completely crazy as they're sort of spooning their conflicts into their mouth. And I'm like one day guys, one day, you'll see that I'm right. And you are wrong and you'll come to the other side, the savory side.
Speaker 1 00:16:01 Well, that's the thing though. Um, so everyone always talks about how big a deal Turkish breakfast is. And I've lived in Turkey and I speak Turkish. And I like, I've lived with Turks before and I'm always telling them, and I've done this for them. And they still don't seem to understand that, that the Palestinian breakfast is really superior, but because of certain geopolitical things, we haven't had a chance to market our breakfast as well as they have. But one
Speaker 2 00:16:25 Of, one of the recipes in the book that, that the people are really excited by is, is just the, the first recipe is for Hasan's easy eggs. And, and when Sammy brought it to the right slightly thought, do we need to tell people how to, you know, soft boil eggs, but he said, trust me, trust me. And actually people have gone completely crazy for it. People who haven't paired eggs and Saar and lemon and some spring onion. And again, the sort of thing that, that you can take for granted is what you should be having for breakfast. People are absolutely totally excited about it. And I have, I have friends who who've sort of, who've had a culinary epiphany discovering shut and eggs as a, as a option for breakfast, completely addictive.
Speaker 3 00:17:05 I mean, also sometimes the, the dish are so simple, but you know, the, the quality of the ingredient that they kind of use or we use and is kinda, uh, uh, play a big part. And you know, it's not, they give you quite a lot for breakfast, like in term of dishes and number dishes, but, uh, the all kind of, um, things that they have on a daily basis and they have it in the house and they just, you know, they make it, uh, different every kind of day because, you know, you get bored after a while, so, okay. So you gonna have Chuko or you gonna have scrambled eggs, or you gonna have bald eggs. It's just kinda, um, but with Turkey, I think Palestinians eat very, so they don't want to sit for four, five hours eating breakfast <laugh> and in Turkey they do that. They just sit and eat and then they order another thing Palestinian just eat very quickly and just,
Speaker 2 00:18:02 Oh my God. Apart from, apart from lunch at your family, Sam that goes on for four, five hours, or just rolls into S
Speaker 1 00:18:09 Salmon, do you eat quickly?
Speaker 3 00:18:12 Uh, I don't eat quickly, but, um, uh, I don't take a long time. It's just like, I enjoy eating, but I chew my food properly. <laugh> I think tar Tara takes a long time when we sit on dinner.
Speaker 2 00:18:27 Well, no, my, my problem is I say, don't stop. I, I just keep topping up my plate. My problem with the Palestinian table is that if there's food there, I find it very difficult to, to stop eating. So Sammy's a grown up, so he eats until he's full and then stops. And I'm like a child. He just can't stop. And I just keep on and on and, and on and on. Yeah. We were in one restaurant together in, uh, in Nazareth and I just sort of decided that I needed to like reorder the main course that had I, he was like, really, I mean, we've really had a lot of food. And then by the time it came again, I, I had actually begun to get a bit full and then had this sort of slight embarrassment of having to then plow through this whole new plate Ofra and, and tomato, which I really didn't need. But yeah, I've got some there's I'm there's name for just sort of like pathological. Um, but Sam Sammy's. Yeah, it feels like Sam's grown. Just sort of when he's,
Speaker 1 00:19:20 So the, in particular, um, I actually wrote about this in my essay. My grandfather taught my mother. Who's not Palestinian how to make these very early on the same exact thing. And it's one of these things, like you said, Sammy, it's like, it's very instinctive that you think, oh, ZLA and eggs pair well together. And we would have them in our lunch box, like, or when you get GAC from the, the CCHA he like, has he has boiled eggs, he has ZLA and he has the CAC. Right. And you just roll it all into one and you make your sandwich and you walk down the road onto school. And it's, it's just one of these flavor combinations. That's really hard to explain. And I think Tara, when you said the thing about the savory, I think of ZLA when I think of ZLA, I just think of umami it's it's the savory flavor in like one packet. It's it's, it's our version of MSG. It's
Speaker 2 00:20:10 It's MSG. I, I went to holiday last week to Suffolk and then halfway through, I ran out of Zeta. I was like, well, holiday's over. I mean, it's just time to go back. I just like, life just got less fun when I didn't have Saar to sprinkle over every meal. Like it definitely is MSG. Well, it's not obviously, but yeah, the combination in the moment, I'm having little mini cucumbers in my running breakfast with everything else. And the combination again, cucumbers and Saar just reminds me so much of the breakfast we have together in Palestine.
Speaker 1 00:20:37 Well, the cucumbers are another thing that I find so well, not the cucumbers, but vegetables. I hope you can hear me turning the pages, the book, um, Palestinians, love vegetables. If you don't have a, uh, like a stack of like cucumbers and tomatoes and onions and mint and things to eat with your in the morning, that's not breakfast you need. Yeah. Like we're very Mediterranean. I find, and I love that about the book and that's why I love the fact that on the cover, just to return to it, I'm also a book historian. So I loved looking at the physical book and like handling it and looking at the binding, but the cover a, it looks like the Palestinian flag, but B it just it's, the vegetables are what makes Palestinian cuisine cuisine.
Speaker 3 00:21:20 Yeah. I mean, I grew up not having so much meat and fish. It was all about the vegetables and the pulses and the grains and the vegetables are the star of the show here and not, you know, so much the meat nowadays, people eat a lot of, a lot more meat. I mean, E even in the middle east as well and Palestinian, definitely. But back then, you know, meat was expensive and fish was not really kind of close by in Jerusalem. And, uh, people relied on, you know, foraging and greens and all and things that they, you know, they farmed, uh, in their kind of plot plot of land, uh, or near nearby. And that was also wonderful where, you know, seasonality kind of play a big part where people really kind of celebrate seasonality. And if something comes, you know, in the season, you see it everywhere and people buying it and doing the best
Speaker 2 00:22:17 And you just kind, it don't you like when, when something comes into season, you know, it's, it's not just one table piled high as OB jeans or sort of the leaves. It's just every single table along the, road's just got hundreds of these things on and it's, it's just beautiful and the green of air, and there's just this Glu and, and it sort of people people know that, that, that this exists and they know about seasonality, but then you actually see it. It's like, whoa, it really is be dinner.
Speaker 1 00:22:46 Yeah. Yeah. It's something that I always miss about being in Philistine is that it was very organic to follow sort of, you know, what your neighbor was selling you, you know, re like it could be apricots, it could be lettuce, but also foraging was a big part of our lives. Um, did you guys go foraging at all?
Speaker 2 00:23:08 Um, not really. We did a little bit with Vivian, but, but not actively, but although Sam, Sammy talks about it a lot in terms of memory,
Speaker 1 00:23:16 Sammy, what was it like growing up forging?
Speaker 3 00:23:19 Yeah. Yeah. You, you go out and you, you fur for a thing, you know what to pick and you just bring it back home. I mean, we used to just do it also with my father sometimes just give you a bag and you just tell you what to pick and you pick it and put it in the bag and just take it home. And then the same evening, you have a nice meal, which, whether it's ho where, or kinda a different type of bitter leaves or, yeah, there's quite a lot. And each season, half its own kind, uh, something to give you to, to feed you and people still do that, which is really lovely to see growing up in Jerusalem, seasonality like, and a gate, and, uh, see all these, uh, ladies from the little villages coming down with baskets of stuff. And it's all seasonal it's stuff that they grow in their backyard or in their garden. And they come to Jerusalem to, to sell it to the crowd and people just kind of, kind of queue for it and the hustle and bustle, and, you know, they kind of want to give you the best price and also, you know, the best quality of whatever they're selling. They, they all kind of, um, older lady normally, and they always kind of stuff the money kind of in their, in their side pocket and
Speaker 1 00:24:40 With the embroidered belts
Speaker 3 00:24:42 With yes.
Speaker 1 00:24:43 That you can, um, put the money in that's. Yeah. Okay. So I think we could easily talk about food for like two hours, three hours, four hours. <laugh>. So I wanna some more questions about the process actually, let's go straight back to the beginning. Tara, what do you remember what the inception of the book was like, who brought the project to who
Speaker 2 00:25:04 Sam? I think's been, been wanting to write this book for probably sort decade. So it was, it was absolutely S's, Sammy's kind of brainchild and his baby that he, he was sort of wanting to give birth to for years. And I've been part of the Oling team for just under a decade, so involved in, in kinda the writing side of books. And so, yeah, I was, I was kind of given the opportunity to do it with Sammy and initially I was nervous to be so out of my comfort zone because I'd come off the back of sort of book, like simple, which was very much my language and sort of world that I, that I knew in Palestinian cuisine is intimidating to an outsider. Who's so nervous about sort of asking the wrong questions or getting into, into kind of conversations, which ones ill equipped to know what's causing offense and which questions are right and wrong.
Speaker 2 00:25:58 And after a lot of kind of research and listening and sort of trusting actually that, or sort of realizing that actually cookbook's a really useful way for other people who are similarly concerned about what questions they can. And can't ask to actually, it's a really kind of safe space to enter into this world and this cuisine and people that, that one doesn't know about and wants to, wants to find out, find out more. So it was just a really organic and very long process in the best, in the best sense, because we weren't rushed for time. So the whole thing kind of really evolved over the course of, of two years with the writing and the recipes and the travels and, and, and all of it.
Speaker 3 00:26:39 Yeah. I mean, also the time, the timing of the making the book where, you know, before a few years back, you think there were no really Palestinian cookbooks around and also, uh, coming, you know, this whole kind of, almost like a I what call conflict, because it comes from LAN brand to come up with a Palestinian cookbook, but now we have all these wonderful, uh, Palestinian cookbooks around and it's, it's almost like you feel, uh, we felt like, uh, they, uh, theyd the way to fall asleep, which is a wonderful thing. I remember when I suggested the idea to the publisher and I was like, they're probably gonna say no. And they just loved the idea. And it's like, I was so happy about it. And, but I said, I'm really surprised that they, they actually kind of loved the idea of it,
Speaker 2 00:27:30 But people, people are so ready Aren to sort of move beyond the idea of just they're being kind of homogenous, middle Eastern food and people are so, so, so ready and willing and keen to kind of zoom in and, and, and sort of look at the geography and the cuisine and, and the place. And again, a cookbook was just a really delicious and great way of, of doing that.
Speaker 1 00:27:52 I, um, I was going to ask about the landscape of Palestinian cookbooks, but you beat me too at Sammy because the last couple of years have seen books like CASIS as the Palestinian table guess mean Hans, uh, Z. And also my personal, one of my personal favorites, which was one of the first was the Gaza kitchen by had dads. I have the first edition and I love it so much because it, even though it's about Gaza, I think it, it tells this story of, um, the complexities of people think that Arab food can be collapsed into one category as, as you referenced. Uh, but it, it really can't because there's so much geographical variety, but also, so there's different history and the history affects sort of what dishes are produced, where and why people, you know, why gons have avocados, that's the results of, of politics.
Speaker 1 00:28:40 Like why, why two dishes like Chedi and aren't really related. That's, that's sort of what history is telling us now. Like there are all these different politics and, and history playing into it, and then there's geography, like I mentioned. So it's been interesting to see not only Palestinian cookbooks become highlighted, but also, um, we've seen interest in CPRI food or many food. There's a new book coming out from your publisher about east African food, uh, through the lens of different grandmothers, by how a sun. And it's, it's exciting to see these, this, this different approach to cooking. One thing I wanted to also emphasize is that it's not just a cookbook, like Leila's book, like Yasmine, Hans book. It has all these different sections in it that, um, and you referenced this earlier, Sammy, these little profiles and bits of history. Can you tell me a bit more Sammy about where that came from?
Speaker 3 00:29:32 Yeah, I mean, uh, I mean, you can't really write a book called Palestine, not talk about a bit of the history, the background, but also from the beginning, we were clear that, uh, it's not gonna be a story of me or a story we wanted. I wanted to include a lot of kind of Palestinian that live in Palestine. Uh, some of them related to food, most some of them are not, but, uh, they are a good, good example of people that kinda, um, uh, live and they're full of positivity and hope and in a humbling way, which is very important to, to, to show and to talk about because the world Palestine and Palestinian, and it gets quite a lot of black and white, and there's quite a lot of grain between where this is what we wanted to show. Um, I come from there and, you know, we are not alter. And, uh, uh, we don't just walk around stabbing people it's we just wanted to live our own life with all the difficulties and do the best out of it. And this is where these characters kind of make the book because people really relate to all these little stories like Vivian or Islam in the refugee camp, or, yeah, there are people that kind of really inspire you just sit down and talk about their lives.
Speaker 2 00:30:56 And also we were really, um, keen that every stage for this book, not to be at all sort of tinged. And, and I, I think lots of cookbooks, not, not just palace cookbook, lots of cookbooks, can I find have a slight kind of tinge of, of the stories of kind of grandmothers handing them recipes and there's are beautiful books and we absolutely love them, but that was very much not the book that, that we are writing. And we wanted it to be really contemporary about what's happening, uh, in Palestine today. And almost sort of hopefully without casting judgment, just showing these windows of kind of this is happening today, right here, right now, not kind of in the field 50 years ago, because people forget that life is going on today, or, or they sort of hear the news story about Gaza or the refugee camp.
Speaker 2 00:31:46 And then aren't able to sort of imagine a happy world and story taking place in these otherwise bleak sort of context. So for example, Islam in the refugee camp, you know, she's, she's living a really, really tough bleak life in lots of ways, but you meet her and hang out with her and you, you don't meet you, you don't meet anyone. Who's, who's infused with more joy and doing more kind of enterprising exciting things with food. And we just wanna, as Sammy said to kind of move beyond this, this black and white to sort of show that you can have joy in, in a kind of hopeless setup and for people to kind of read it and be excited to go to Palestine and go and meet and take one of her cooking courses, I'll go and seek out Vivian Sanso in her seed library and, and it's all happening, you know, right here right now today.
Speaker 1 00:32:36 That's something that's very difficult as a Palestinian to explain to people is that, yeah, life can be extremely difficult. I mean, it's, it's just, it's, it's a very different world. And what I end up telling people is, but the human instinct is to try to create happiness and normal C. And that's really what, you know, a people shouldn't be praised for this because that's a quality that we all have. And no one wants to be sort of praised for doing the necessity of, of living their lives. But I mean, you want to highlight it's difficult because you wanna highlight the injustices, but at the same time, you, you wanna owe people their normalcy, which is what I think a lot of people simply want, or also their extraordinariness like, like, like Vivians and so, or Islam. Um, and you, there's also the story of the 10 of nations in here.
Speaker 1 00:33:23 And I mean, another thing you said about this sort of being not sort of CP tone, which I think is very interesting, because one thing I've been doing as I've been writing about your book is I've been going through photo archives, not my own, going through online repositories and finding pictures of the way people, you know, people with stone mills and Palestine and all this stuff. And I've been gathering photos and talking to photo archivists just for fun, really. And the thing I keep thinking is, oh, not much has it's weird, cuz my brain goes in the direction of not much has actually changed because there's still a girl learning how to cook from her mother. And that's how I learned how to cook was by watching my mother. And then also that little girl in that photo probably went on and created what her mother would assume was a Cardinal sin by updating a dish or by swapping out ingredients.
Speaker 1 00:34:12 I mean the first time I, I, I can't remember the first time I, um, I took the, the dish me F, which is stuffed, uh, fingers of a cabbage with rice and spices and maybe meat. And the first time I sort of did it more contemporary, my mother who's not Palestinian I'll remind you nearly had a fit. She was like, I don't understand why you're doing it this way. Like, why are you modernizing it? She called it modern. And I remember we had this long conversation about how food changes from generation to generation. And, but then
Speaker 2 00:34:43 Again, it's such a big responsibility that Sammy and I sort of felt because when you're sort of modernizing stroke playing around with a dish, you know, you are not just doing that when it's, when it's a Palestinian dish because of the link to, to identity and land. And again, again, as an outsider, I think it's really difficult to understand the depth of that link until you actually go and, and meet the guy who sits under the olive tree to protect it or the farmer or the distributor and the link, the link between produce and land and history and identity. So for us, there was such a strong sense of responsibility, but, but also not wanting to reproduce the recipes that are in other books. We didn't want to have recipes for traditional tab because you couldn't find them elsewhere. So we wanted to sort of quote play around, but also bearing moment. This is not just playing around cause of that link. Um, but yeah,
Speaker 1 00:35:37 I think you guys did both. I think you guys managed to preserve certain dishes in the states that, well, I mean, it's also so hard and I'm sure you guys saw this. I'm sure that you guys had the, this, this issue of, of Palestine is so it's such a small plot of land mm-hmm <affirmative>, but it's so diverse. So we all make things different. I mean, we've all had that fight, right? Sammy with someone from a different part of where they're like, why did you make this dish with this spice? Or why did you put, um, this vegetable and this dish? And I'm like, well, I, um,
Speaker 3 00:36:08 Yeah, kind particular kind of ingredients or dishes or wave of we still to the day, but you know, because the land is shrinking and people integrating each other, the it, you see it less and less, and this is something that kind of will, um, one day not get lost, but get kind of muddled mm-hmm <affirmative>. But, uh, modernizing a addition, I mean the whole kind of feeling of responsibility. And uh, but then we sat down and talked about who's actually gonna buy the book because most Palestinian that I know women, for example, they already learn the dishes by heart. So they don't need really a cookbook. Realistically, most of the people that are going to buy the book is, are westerns or European Americans Canadian. Yeah. So on and on, but it's also nice to, to, to hear from Palestinians that, you know, they buy the book and love cooking from it because, uh, they, although they know the dishes, they also, um, happy to try new things, which is really kind of, uh, surprised me in a way. Uh,
Speaker 2 00:37:25 It's true. And again, it's, it's a slightly kind of wanting to have a can and eat it because on one hand, it's very much a practical book for the busy home cook who lives outside Palestine. But on the other hand, the opinion of a Palestinian like means obviously so much to us and Sam and I got an email today from Vivian who was talking about a buddy of hers who was just so excited by this book. He just was really connecting with the Palestinian then. And that it meant so much that it was kinda getting the, getting the high five from him. But yeah, just every, every recipe, every story every day was, was us kind of holding this thing in, in, uh, in balance. Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:38:03 Yeah. A friend of mine told me that too. He's Palestinian Jordanian and, and is now, um, has been displaced and lives abroad. And he was telling me that he uses the book and he likes all the dishes that aren't the things we learned. I think what me and him talked about was the fact that we felt like the book, like I said earlier, it kind of represents the way we cook, which is both super it's weird. My mom's always saying that like, the way that I cook is, is Palestinian modern, but I also know that I can be super conservative about dishes and the way they're cooked. And I think this book kind of falls in the Bo in the middle.
Speaker 2 00:38:36 Yeah. Cause we're also hoping that the people who haven't got a Palestinian book yet is that there, there are the definitive kind of classic Palestinian dishes and people will really get excited about chicken mustard can with the sumac onions or the Mac, the upside down savory rice cake. So, so, you know, we're hoping to kind of reach to kind the differe of Palestinian brick also for the people, but, but hopefully there's room on everyone's bookshelf for all the books out there. Cause they're, they're also different. Everyone's got their different reason for, for telling their story, whether they are the recipes for their daughters, if they're living outside of Palestine or to come with her activist background. So I think is also telling a lot of stories. So I think, I think hopefully people can have space for all of them.
Speaker 1 00:39:20 So can I ask a difficult ish question about the challenges of writing this book?
Speaker 3 00:39:24 Yeah, no, it is kind of, uh, we always say it it's like words are really important and words are so loaded when you talk about this part of the world, which is Palestine and Israel. And we wanted to tell the story and not to shy from telling the story, but you have to be careful with, you know, what words you use and Tara had. I mean, she was in Agni all the time and going over and over the text and then kind of changing words and uh, because you don't want to, um, you don't want to show any anger first of all. And uh, you want tell the story as it is, and you want people to relate to the story as well and to what's happening and is kind of, uh, the, the person to take credit for that because she, she did an amazing job.
Speaker 2 00:40:13 Thanks. <laugh> yeah. I mean, there are so many challenges because I mean, I, you know, all authors care so much about their book, but it's, it's, it's, you know, just the fact that it's a tourism, doesn't prevent ones saying it like caring so much and feeling such a weight of responsibility and wanting it to be just this absolute kind of knockout, beautiful book that does justice to everything that is going on and everything that Sam is and the journey he's been on. And, and then also sort of personally Sam and I we're, we kind of, we've got such different sort of energy levels or temperance and, and generally that, that kind of worked really well. Cause we'd have this sort of constant Cule, but then there's a challenge to co-author a book because by nature, anyone who's involved with either words or food is very controlling.
Speaker 2 00:41:01 Like that's, that's why we choose words in food. Cause we can control these things. And, and you've got two people working together for two years, both trying to control the narrative and the recipe. And that's gonna definitely sort of pose challenges, but, but always kind of trying to remember that you are on the same side and that you are yeah, you're absolutely on the same side, but for sure there was kind of one or two like big bus stops of just like nervous energies during the shoot or on travels or sort of, you know, putting things together to hope. Hopefully the it's kinda all the better for it, but yeah, we had to hug it out a couple of times.
Speaker 1 00:41:37 Yeah. So I have a question, another question, which is like asking you all to choose children, which I remember from the, the eggplant and the cookbook, which will let the listeners have to wonder about Tara has already decided what her favorite recipe is, but do you guys have favorite recipes from the book?
Speaker 2 00:41:58 I mean, we we've talked about it already, but one of my favorite recipes is for sure the, the gem lettuce salad that's on the cover. Cause it's just got so many different elements, the burnt over Jean yogurt and the smack cucumber and personally mint and then completely obsessed by the shatter, the fermented chili paste. And also the way that I cook I'm a real batch cooker. So I've got everything kind of ready in the fridge, which lasts three or four days. So I can just kinda put together this instantly delicious dish without actually having to kind chop at the time. Um, but also the chicken mess can, I think is a great entry point for people who are new to the cuisine. Cause I think it really showcases how simple Palestinian cooking can be and how delicious like it it's, it's, there's nothing kind of complex or Trixy about it, but the result is just completely mind blown.
Speaker 1 00:42:44 It's uh, one of my favorite dishes too. I mean, um, we make it differently in my family because we don't eat chicken, uh, bizarre for, for, for Palestinians not to eat a particular type of meat, but we don't, I don't me and my father don't eat chicken and we're from Tokara, which is very well known from Sahan. So seeing it, and there made me happy because I have all these memories of making it and my mother's innovation and my father's innovation, which they borrowed from a friend of ours when we lived in QLA was to roll it like a burrito so that the, it gets soggy on the inside, but then it gets crispy on the outside once you stick it in the oven. Yeah. So I loved seeing it as well. Mm-hmm <affirmative> what about you Sammy? What are your favorite dishes in the cookbook, which again is like asking you to pick a child
Speaker 3 00:43:25 It's it's a really difficult kinda that's the, um, because I grew up on eating and loving most of these dishes. So every time I cook a dish, I kind of fall in love with it, but then, but then I move on it's there isn't one particular, I mean, my mother's cer fitters, probably one of the dishes that I love to eat, but I'm also happy to, to choose for example, or Satan any day, you know, yesterday I met, which is again, you know, how not to fall in love with be with bit of Tahi, lemon and garlic. For me, it kind, um, shifts from one mood to another one day. I, I love freak it the next day. I'm loving, you know, the, the SA again. So I, I can't really choose one dish that you can just say, this is the ultimate dish that I wanna choose from Palestine. And just kind of say, this is my favorite dish.
Speaker 2 00:44:27 <laugh> Sam, you need to have the, uh, the cucumber and Tai suit. Cause it's so hot where you are. I know finishes. It's like a lovely alternative to fashion.
Speaker 3 00:44:35 I know. And we have quite a lot of cucumber in the garden. So to do that, but you know, give MEE any day I would eat it totally guilty.
Speaker 1 00:44:45 Whenever I take people from who haven't grown up in the Arab boiled to go get cane either and I'm men or Jerusalem, they're always surprised that there's lots of old men eating it either together or on their own. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm always trying to explain to them that like eating alone, isn't a bad thing. It's this, this weird idea from, from, from, from somewhere, I would sit next to older men all the time, eating cane on the sidewalk in arm men when I was living in Amman.
Speaker 2 00:45:11 I completely agree. And actually, if someone said to me like, what's your definition of kind hope like, or, or what's your definition of like a happy site? I just think of an old person sitting on a bench in the UK eating ice cream by themselves. And I just, because I think of ice cream as being such kinda celebratory thing you do together, but to kinda actively choose that to do by yourself, to do it by yourself and apart bench. I just think, I think it's beautiful. I just absolutely love it. So it's the kinda cane equivalent.
Speaker 1 00:45:37 Yeah. I mean also reminds me of my grandfather who used to take me on his shoulders to go eat cane and, and I'm sure he did it when I wasn't around too, because he, he valued himself as a human being and wanted to treat himself when he was out walking. It. Also's hard to explain to people all the water, why there's water on the table and not coffee. And I'm just like, well, cuz you wanna feel the sweet
Speaker 2 00:45:57 <laugh> oh yeah, we were, we were given very strict instructions that we weren't allowed to drink coffee. The, the, the guy who was doing it was very strict about that. <laugh>
Speaker 1 00:46:06 It seems like the reception to the book has been amazing because Sammy keeps posting well, I mean, Sammy, you lost all your Instagram posts a while ago. I understand. Yeah. But you've been posting all these wonderful pictures that people send you.
Speaker 3 00:46:19 I know, and they're wonderful to see as well because some of them, they really kind of make the, the effort and cook all the time and they send me almost every week pictures of the dishes they cook. It's, uh, it's such a kind of humbling and wonderful thing to see, but also it's an indication of, you know, that they love the book. They love the recipes. They, they love the narrative of the book and they connect to the recipes and they want to cook more and more. And because I mean, the recipes really work for them. And there are new flavors as well for many people.
Speaker 2 00:46:55 And it's amazing. There's a couple of people who are real and they are picking every single recipe in the book. And uh, it's, it's absolutely amazing. It's fulltime fulltime job. I recipe,
Speaker 1 00:47:17 I congratulate you on the book because it's absolutely stunning. It's beautifully bound. The photos are stunning. And I think looking through the book, you've made some really interesting choices on, on what to highlight from Palestine itself. It feels very real to me, it feels like where I grew up and where I traveled a lot as a kid and all these little details. Um, it's, it's amazing. And I, I, again, congratulations and I hope the reception continues to be good to close. I wanted to ask you, what are you guys currently working on? What projects do you have on your, are you guys on vacation? Are you guys, what are you doing?
Speaker 3 00:47:50 We are, we are part on holiday, I think.
Speaker 2 00:47:52 Um, yeah, I've got three kids at home on, on some holidays. So I'm doing bits and bobs of work, but I'm, I'm still in sort of slight lockdown mode and just crossing everything for September return to schools so that, so I can get my ass back to work and get my brain back in gear.
Speaker 1 00:48:10 Fair me.
Speaker 3 00:48:11 Yeah. I'm I'm on holiday or semi holiday in Inre in Italy. I have a place here and just taking it easy, cooking a lot and eating as well. <laugh> we have few friends, so I kind of cook things and take them down. We have them for lunch or supper and inviting people around. We have few friends to visit, which is really lovely. Uh, so I'm gonna be here until end of August, probably.
Speaker 1 00:48:40 Oh, nice. That's lovely
Speaker 3 00:48:42 Future project. I mean, we still, I mean, I'm still waiting because London is still kind of uncertainty, but I, I have a new kind idea that maybe can't really, but
Speaker 2 00:48:57 In terms of the book and I, sometimes we dream about someone picking this up, making a, a kind of Netflix style documentary, because I think it would be such a great thing to do like 10 episodes on, on the sort of the people that we profile, the people in places we profile on the book and then linking them to recipes. And again, I just, I think, I think people are so kind of hungry and, and keen to, to sort of jump in and find out more and meet people who are in Palestine today. And so we're waiting for that call.
Speaker 1 00:49:28 I would love be involved that we love. Um, anyway, thank you guys. Uh, and congratulations.
Speaker 1 00:49:48 Thank you for listening. And again, a big thank you to Sammy Andra. You can follow me at NA Mon sort 26 on Twitter, and you can follow the mad at the may on Twitter. The production team includes Micah Hughes. You can follow at Micah, a Hughes and Ola. Most importantly, our audio editor, who does the pro production work. Nick gunk, a big thank you to the loose foundation. Our music is by blue dot sessions. Be sure to subscribe or follow the Madan on social media for upcoming episodes and more in the Mayans repertoire of podcasts.
