Foods Of Peace And Palestine

Palestine is  and always has been an area fraught with tension and hate. The one thing that relieves the  constant fighting and afterwards fragile truces. is the food. It is a cuisine full of fire and sweetness, full of ancient recipes and flavors. Now there's a new cookbook celebrating it.

Regular contributor , Mayukh Sen, wrote about Yasmin Khan' latest book,Zaitoun :Recipes From The Palestinian Kitchen (W.W. Norton and Company Publishers 2019) in today's New York Times  Food section. The book almost never happened. Ms. Khan developed a block. Images of the Israeli military checkpoints in the West Bank and Gaza kept haunting her. Thankfully Anthony Bourdain's daring attitude towards food inspired and impelled her to soldier through. She gave herself pep talks too, self advising to not make it pretty or sanitize. See the area for what it is. It helped her and reinforced her love for this strife riddled land. Ms. Khan fell in love with the food when she found herself there a decade ago, working on human rights with the group, War On Wants, a British charity focused on an anti poverty initiative. The days there were distressing, due to the constant presence of armed military . Food soothed the anxiety. Fresh made hummus and baklava   eaten in little cafes at sunset helped to alleviate those frenzied feelings. The work burned her out and three years ago turned to food . Her first cookbook, The Saffron Tales, featuring recipes from her mother's Iranian background was published.

The new book reflects all the different aspects of Palestinian cooking. It's divided into three different categories.There is the bread and meat based cooking of the West Bank which includes East Jerusalem and extends to the River Jordan. There is also the food of Galilee and Nazareth that resembles Levantine cuisine with its' tabbouleh salad and  spiced ground kibbeh. Then there is the cooking of the Gaza Strip, a dense patch bordering Egypt.It is largely fish based and fiery. One of that area's most treasured dishes is zibdiyit gambari , a tomato stew rife with jalapenos and shrimp , cooked in a clay pot. That recipe and others are included in  the article. Cauliflower is popular  there, so there is a roasted cauliflower soup, spiked with cumin and cauliflower along with turmeric.Chicken is also big in Palestinian cooking and there is a recipe for it ,mussakhan, cooked with sumac and onions, Again, spices figure prominently in it as well,namely cumin caraway and the surprising allspice.

Palestinian food is comfort food to many. It was to Yasmin Khan  who created a cookbook to celebrate her love for it. It is a lovely tribute to a land where food means everything amidst the strife.

The Flavors Of Bangladesh

Bangladesh food is hard to find even in this metropolitan area.Yet there is one restaurant that's opening the culinary door. Korai Kitchen is that eatery and it's ground breaking on so many levels.

Mayukh Sen,a James Beard award winning writer, wrote about this unique restaurant in yesterday's New York Times Food section.The restaurant is owned by Nur-E Gulshan Rahman and her youngest daughter, Nur-E Farhana Raman.It's the only Bangladeshi restaurant in the  Jersey City area and one of a handful in the New York metropolitan area.Most of this kind are found in Jackson Heights and Astoria.The Journal Square site is popular and there will be people who will be curious about it,since it is different from the many Indian restaurants doting the area.Bangladeshi food is different than Hindu and Pakistani.There is a lot of fish,thanks to the country being situated on the Bay Of Bengal.They have curries along with goat meat and potatoes.

Korai Kitchen offers a buffet to let diners unfamiliar with the cuisine, a taste of the best Bangladeshi home cooking.The family cooks bhorthas,,a mashes served at every meal.They can be made from, potatoes, tomatoes or eggplants.There is also khichuri, a mix of masoor and moong dal, the creamy lentil based dish.It is also laden with rice, onions, Chile's, ginger and garlic. Like other recipes of the region,it is also laced with cardamom, cloves,cinnamon and turmeric.Diners go mad for Nur-E Gulshan Rahman"s pumpkin shrimp curry  cut up with the traditional fang shaped blade.Dessert is the peach colored mishti doi a sweet   silky dessert made with jaggery and cardamom.

For those wanting true Bangladeshi food, go to Korai kitchen.It"s home cooking with variety.It's a trip to a Bangladesh home,where there is always love and food.

The Glory Of Islamic Food

Islam, like many other religions has taken a bad wrap lately. People tend to forget its' history and with that the foods that are part of that history. Thankfully , there is a new cookbook that shows not only the foods of this vast religion but also the its' long story. Both are intricately intertwined.

It is the subject of a new cookbook written by cookbook writer, Anissa Helou, a Christian, herself, but also Lebanese born. Mayukh Sen, a James Beard award winning writer on food and culture, interviewed Ms. Helou for yesterday's New York Times Food section. Like many other Lebanese, she was uprooted by the civil war that started in 1975 and ended in 1990. She talked with many from this  diaspora in 1992 and realized there was a need for a cookbook. Lebanese Cookbook was on the shortlist for the Andre Simon award which honors British food and drink books., Eight more recipe books followed, covering such topics as varied as Mediterranean street food to offal. The ninth cookbook , Feast : Food Of The Islamic World , a five hundred page book rivaling LaRousse Gastronomique in size. It starts off with the advent of the religion i the year 610 to the Mughal Dynasty. There are 300 recipes(!) that show the expansive realm of the religion, from Xinjiang to Zanzibar. Ms. Helou felt she had to write this to show how the religion  really is after seeing the rise if ISIS and the Arab Spring vilify it.

The recipes are extensive . (those interested can take a free peek at the book on Amazon). Flat breads are the same yet not the same, thanks to variations that include ghee and nigella seeds. A dessert as simple as rice pudding is made differently according to the country. Moroccans  make it with milk and orange water. The Turkish omit the milk and flavor it with saffron. There is also the Lebanese treat, kabab karaz a dish of ground lamb meatballs cooked in a pool  of sour cherries,raw cane sugar and pomegranate molasses. The meatballs look like tiny ruby marbles as they're piled on pita triangles that have been drizzled with melted butter and topped with chopped parsley and toasted pine nuts. The recipe is interesting because it uses the Lebanese seven spice mixture, easily made at home by combining pepper with ground allspice, cinnamon,coriander, clove ginger and freshly grated nutmeg. The leftover mix can be used in marinades and tabbouleh.It's also special because it comes from the war torn city of Aleppo, once considered the Lyons of Syria,

Ms. Helou is the savior of Islamic cooking. it's told from a , well researched point of view. It's not just a cookbook but history book.,