This is from one of my favourite podcasts, and one of the best interviewers, Terry Gross, ‘as little as life’ is the way she explains her 4’11” stature, interviews, Reem Kassis, the author of the Palestinian Table, a cookbook, and The Arabesque Table, listen and enjoy. It’s all about food, or is it? – Editor, 28 Oct 2022
SPEAKERS
Terry Gross, Reem Kassis, 4PR – Voice of the People
Terry Gross
This is fresh air. I’m Terry Gross. A lot of dishes that many of us think of as Middle Eastern or Israeli, originated as Palestinian dishes. My guest Reem Kassis, wrote about the history of Palestinian food, along with some of her personal history, in her first book, The Palestinian table. In her new book, The arabesque table, she expands the focus to the cross cultural culinary history of the Arab world. Both books are beautifully illustrated cookbooks, with each recipe accompanied by historical background and when relevant personal stories, because he’s this Palestinian and was raised in East Jerusalem, which is predominantly Palestinian, her mother as Palestinian Muslim, her father, a Palestinian Christian. Growing up, she learned about food in the kitchens of her mother and two grandmothers. She moved to Philadelphia when she was 17 to study at the University of Pennsylvania, where she received her undergraduate degree and then an MBA from the Wharton School. She lived in London for five years where she received a graduate degree in social psychology from the London School of Economics. She now lives outside of Philadelphia in Bryn Mawr with her husband and their two daughters. She describes her refrigerator as multicultural, Reem, Cassius, welcome to fresh air.
Reem Kassis
Thank you for having me, Terry,
Terry Gross
you write that you became interested in culinary history when you realized how many dishes were made of ingredients that weren’t native to those nations? For instance, when we think of Italian food, we think of tomatoes, which aren’t native to Italy. What are some other examples of that?
Reem Kassis
There’s a lot of fruits and vegetables that actually originated in North South and Central America, chilies are not native to our region. They originated in South America, potatoes as well. You know, when you think of Irish food, sometimes you think, oh, potatoes, and they’re gonna stews, but potatoes actually also originated in Peru, and only made their way after the Columbian Exchange. A lot of the ingredients like rice, which are staples and Arab cuisine, also originated in Asia and only became staples in the 20th century. So you see it across a wide class and variety of crops and ingredients.
Terry Gross
What are some of the foods with Palestinian origins that most of us don’t realize are Palestinian.
So I think one of the things that’s important to recognize when we even say Palestinian is the whole idea of national cuisine itself is relatively recent. It came about with the rise of the nation state and the 19th century. Food at its core is very regional, and our part of the world stretches back to the start of civilization. So when we look at countries like Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, you see that they share a lot of dishes and ingredients in common because we are located in the same area geographically. So often when people ask me, you know, what is a Palestinian dish, it’s easy to point to specific things like MK Luba, which is an inverted dish of rice and vegetables, or my stool, which is similar to couscous, but a bit larger. And it is made that way only in Palestine. So those two dishes are considered by many to be the national dishes of Palestine, if you will. But if you look across the Levant, greater Syria, you see so many commonalities, because of the way that our history has transpired. Over the last several centuries, I was surprised to see that bagels might originate in Arab cuisine, I always associate them with Eastern European Jewish origins. So tell me about the history of the Arab equivalent of the bagel.
So like you I actually also always assumed it originated with Ashkenazi communities in Eastern Europe. And then I started doing the research for this book, the new one that just came out and part of the research involved looking through ancient medieval Arabic cookbooks, and I’m flipping through one of them from the 13th century and they’re in a chapter on bread. I see a section on Kayak, which is a ring shaped dough that Arabs used to make centuries ago and I’m reading and in there it says, you know, take these ring shaped those, put them on a dowel, boil them in water and then bake them and that essentially He is what a bagel is today. So once you start digging deeper, you realize the bagel can be traced back. And this is done by a lot of Jewish researchers, they trace it back to Poland in the 16th century. In Poland, however, they trace it back to their royal family to the 13th century. And then when you look who married into that royal family, it was a woman who came from Bari, Italy. And Bari, Italy in the Middle Ages was the principal stronghold of the Islamic empire. And from there, the cuisine of Europe was influenced heavily by Arab traders and the conquest of that region. So you start to see how the bagel you know, in its original form traveled across the world. And then you also see very similar versions of it in China, where the trade routes also went. And then you realize the thing connecting all those was their origin in those Arabic cookbooks that fact of boiling a piece of dough before baking it. So I was fascinated just as much as you to learn that its origins go much further back then 16th century Eastern Europe.
Terry Gross
Do you remember eating bagels when you were growing up
Reem Kassis
Not the bagels that we recognize today in the US is bagels, what I grew up eating was something called cackle oats. Today, here in the West, they refer to them as Jerusalem’s sesame bagels, but they’re substantially lighter and airier. On the inside. They’re also much longer and oval shaped and studied with sesame seeds. And those are probably one of the most prominent things I remember eating as a kid because everybody on the streets walked around with carts selling them, they would stand outside or schools outside or homes and just you know, yell off the top of their lungs, Chi Chi for two cycles come by it and that was our snack.
Terry Gross
A lot of Americans are familiar with hummus, which is a spread of chickpeas and tahini. You describe homeless as the most recognizable and most controversial Middle Eastern dish, what is controversial about hummus.
Reem Kassis
So hummus itself is controversial abroad, because just a few decades ago, nobody knew what it was, you know, when my husband would take it to school people would make fun of him for eating this beige paste. Now suddenly, since the late 80s, it’s become much more popular and recognized abroad as Israeli. And I think that’s where the controversy happens. This is a dish that is inherently Arab. And abroad. It’s being marketed as Israeli without any mention to those origins. And that’s where the controversy arises that I’m referring to in the book.
Terry Gross
You say that’s true of various Palestinian foods that the Palestinian origins are the Arab origins aren’t recognized, at least not in America. So I’m wondering how that makes you feel both as somebody who has become a historian of Arab food, but also as somebody you know, who’s Palestinian, and probably have some personal reactions to that.
Reem Kassis
So look, for me, I started noticing these things, once I left Jerusalem, I think a big part of our identities are formed and shaped once you are out of the place from which your identity arises, you start to see yourself in relation to others, back home, everyone’s Palestinian, it doesn’t matter. You come here, and suddenly it’s a defining factor. So when I’m here, and I see something that I know is such an important part of my culinary identity being appropriated as Israeli, it feels almost like adding insult to injury and willfully saying that I don’t exist, that I don’t have a past that I was never there or part of the history. So I’ve said this before. It’s not about the chickpea itself. It’s not about the dish, it’s more about what that omission signifies to people like me who are Palestinian who see our history being sidestepped completely and ignored abroad.
Terry Gross
You know, you mentioned that when you you lived in a Palestinian community in East Jerusalem being Palestinian was just what people were. But when you moved to America, it was a defining trait. Along those lines, you say you didn’t appreciate your mother’s cooking until you left Jerusalem and moved to Philadelphia to study at the University of Pennsylvania. So how did her cooking come into a different form of focus after you left home
Reem Kassis
So Terry, I think a lot of times you take things for granted as a child and I definitely did that with my mother’s cooking my daughter’s do the same with mine. But once I left and I arrived in the US there was a bit of culture shock for me. Part of it was seeing how I’m eating on my own in the dining halls. There isn’t that familial? feeling of having everyone eating together and then the food itself I started to crave it. I missed it. I missed not on Only the taste and the flavor, but the entire feeling around it. And that’s when I started actually tinkering with cooking. And I would call my mother and ask her for recipes. So it started out simple. But I remember the first dish that I wanted to make was my Luba and inverted rice and vegetable dish. And I called my mother and this was long before Facetime and Skype. And I think I called her maybe 15 times in the span of two hours, that at one point, she said, it’s cheaper for me to fly over and cook it for you than to have to keep answering your questions about how to make it. But I remember eating it then. And somehow it gave me a sense of satisfaction of being closer to home. And even if just for a little bit, that nostalgia that I had was placated just for or just by eating that dish.
Terry Gross
So without giving us a recipe worthy of 15 phone calls. Describe the dish and why it tastes so good. And your why you craved it.
Reem Kassis
This is surprisingly simple. At its core, it is fried vegetables. Generally it’s either eggplant or cauliflower. Sometimes people use both. And those are layered in a pot between rice that is spiced with several different spices, including tumeric, cinnamon pimento. And you can use chicken or meat as well. Either at the bottom of the pot, or once you’ve taken their broth roast them and serve it on top simple, you cook it you wait a little bit to let it rest and then you flip it over. And hence the name luminance flipped over. And you serve it with yogurt or chopped mixed salad. And it’s simple. But it’s just satisfying at least for someone who’s grown up eating, you know dishes full of rice and meat and sauce on the side from the salad or the yogurt. It just it felt like home to me.
Terry Gross
So what’s on top of the vegetables and meat or the rice
as well, when you flip it over? You see the vegetables and the meat on top. They go in first into the pot and then you flip it and those are at the top.
Your I think the most meaningful ingredient in the Arab world is olives. And olive oil. Does your family have olive trees?
Reem Kassis
They do they have olive groves and the Galilee and the northern part of the country. Yes.
Terry Gross
And describe the grove.
It’s huge. I mean, you look and you see all of trees as far as your eye can see. And it’s beautiful in terms of nature. But it’s also we would go there in the fall when it was the season to pick. And so in my mind, I don’t only see the trees when I think of it. I also see the dome shaped Saj oven that we would take to bake bread on. And I see the blankets we would spread on the floor to sit and eat that bread along with Lebanon and all of their oil from the previous season. So it’s very, you know, it’s green. It’s it’s homey, it’s welcoming, but it also it smells very nice, both from the olive trees and the foods that you’re eating while you’re picking things in season.
Terry Gross
So this is your father’s side of the family. It is Yes. And did they make olive oil.
So they would pick the olives. And they actually it varies in different parts of the country when you pick them in when you press them. So in the north, they tend to wait until the olives are almost black on the tree. And then they pick it and press it so the olive tends to be a bit sweeter and not as sharp as the ones that are picked when they’re green.
How does that compare with the olive oil, even if you buy expensive olive oil that you get in the market in the US.
So the problem with oil that you buy in stores is oftentimes it’s adulterated. Especially the ones that you see even if they’re expensive if they’re the product of several countries, you often don’t know what it is that you’re getting. In terms of how it compares to ones that are single origin or Protected Designation and are very good oils. It you know might vary the way to apples that you buy from two different farmers will taste I find the one from back home a little sweeter and less peppery, when it hits the back of your throat versus the ones that I purchased sometimes from Italy or Greece, which are the fragrance is a bit more spicy when you eat it, but they’re good and you know each is good in its own way.
Terry Gross
So you describe Zatara as the least understood yet most recognized ingredient of the Middle East what what is it for people who are unfamiliar with it,
that that is an herb in and of itself and it’s from the oregano family. What ends up happening here is when people say that they are referring to the condiment made from that herb mixed with sumac, sesame and salt, and sometimes people will call it time but it’s actually not time at all it is much much closer to oregano than it is Time. And the problem or the reason it’s misunderstood is people probably don’t realize it’s an actual plant. So we do make a condiment from that plant. And we creatively call it by the same name as the plant. But we also use it in other applications. We use it in DOS, you know, different types of bread and pastries. We use it to make teas as well. And of course, the condiment is probably the most widely used and recognize and it’s like I was saying, mixed with sumac, sesame seed and salt. And it’s probably present on every table in any Palestinian, Syrian Lebanese Jordanian household. And it’s your go to breakfast, you dip pita bread and olive oil and Zapata and you’re good to go.
Terry Gross
When you were growing up, where did your family get this tar from?
Reem Kassis
We used to forage for it in the mountains. And then there was a period where Israel made it illegal to forage for it. So we grew some in our backyard, but it’s very different when it’s foraged wild versus
picked was roasted illegal.
Terry Gross
So it’s a complicated, long story. The claim was that they were trying to prove its endangered, and we’re trying to protect it, but it was for political reasons.
Terry Gross
So what is the brief version of the political reasons?
Reem Kassis
This is from one of my favorite podcasts, and one of the best interviewers, Terry So it’s a couple of things. One of them. The first one is that that is very symbolic for Palestinians. It is a big part, not only of the cuisine, but also it’s seen as a symbol of the culture. It is one of the you know, if you ask a Palestinian, what represents you code, from a food perspective, they would say olives and zakah, it’s our breakfast, it’s our staple food, even families who have access to nothing will always have that. So there is the one side of it, which was preventing them from accessing this herb that is very important to them. So a morale side of it. The other one was more of a business perspective, there were these families that were trying to grow that that and sell it. And so in order to do that, if you prevent families from gathering it for free in the wild, they would be forced to purchase it and it would be more lucrative and that family was an Israeli Jewish family. And I only learned that bit of history this summer when I was there. Someone was working on a research project and we ended up discussing this.
Terry Gross
Your mother is Muslim, Palestinian, your father is christian palestinian, do they have different food traditions in their family because of the region that they’re from? Or because of one being Muslim and one Christian?
Reem Kassis
Both actually, Terry, so my father’s from the northern part of the country, it’s much closer to the Lebanese border. And that speaks to their originality of food, their dishes tend to be more similar to what you would see in Lebanon. So there is more focused on mesic platters, just smaller plates of things that are often enjoyed alongside add up, which is an alcoholic drink. My mother’s side of the family are from an area referred to as the triangle, it’s more in the center of the country. It’s a predominantly Muslim village, so you don’t see much of that most of their dishes or rice based dishes, dishes that feed large crowds, the families tend to be larger. So also you won’t see dishes like Kobani Yeah, which is a raw bulgur and lamp tar tar. It’s served in Lebanon predominantly. So you see it in the northern part of Palestine, not in the center, which is further south. So you see those differences? Like you guessed because of both religion and geography.
Terry Gross
I want to ask you about a very simple dish that would be easy to comprehend on the radio that I think even I could make which one, it’s your father’s fried egg recipe. And it sounds delicious and easy, and I’m really looking forward to trying it so can you can you describe it and why it tastes special.
So the dish you’re talking about is probably one of the most simple dishes from my first book. It’s all of its eggs, fried and olive oil and sprinkled with zapdat. And I think when you have good ingredients, it doesn’t take much to make them taste good. But what we do is you put a copious amount of olive oil in the frying pan and you crack an egg in it, and you sprinkle it with Zappa and so you also when you serve it, you serve it with the olive oil. So not only are you dipping into a crispy fried egg white with a slightly runny yolk, you also have the olive oil that’s filled with the ZocDoc flavor that’s all being mopped up with pita bread. So it’s a very simple dish perfect for a first timer and it really is delicious.
Terry Gross
And you describe taking the oil because you’re using a lot of oil and then spooning it over the eggs as the eggs cook.
Yes. So you don’t want to flip it over and crack the yolk so what my mother or my father would do in frying You would tilt the pan to the side, and you would take some of the olive oil and spoon it right over the yoke. So you’re cooking it from the top because oil is very hot, but you’re not risking breaking it. You don’t have to fidget with flipping it over.
Terry Gross
And you also cover it for a while.
Yeah, you can. I mean, that’s the thing with Arab cooking, or in general, everything is so forgiving. And this is why I also, you know, wanted to write a cookbook because I asked my mother for a recipe, how do I do this, you know, a pinch of this pinch of that, cover it don’t cover it, do this. And it’s so just, it’s inherent, it’s something that’s learned over generations and, and it’s like an unqualified knowledge, if you will. So sometimes I cover it, sometimes I don’t. And it turns out good no matter what you do.
Terry Gross
So Reem you hadn’t planned on becoming a cookbook author, you went to Wharton, you are in the business world for years, what changed your mind about what you wanted to do?
Reem Kassis
I think it was a combination of factors coming together at the same time, my first daughter had just been born. And I think like any new parent, especially one who’s living outside their country, I panicked for a host of reasons. One of it was worrying that my daughter is not going to have the same upbringing that I did, or the same connection to her roots, which had grounded me throughout my life. And so I started compiling my family’s recipes and stories together almost as a way for her to have a piece of home wherever she ended up in the world. But once I did that, and I started to see all those pieces coming together, I realized, you know, yes, these are my family’s recipes. These are my family stories. But taken together as a whole, they could be the story of any and every Palestinian family. And that was a narrative that you don’t often hear, especially not in the West, you hear Palestinian and the first thing your mind goes to is war and occupation and that sort of thing. And I wanted to show a human face to my people, I wanted to show our rich history. And that was how the first book or the idea for it came about. And I always thought, Okay, I’m going to publish this book, and then I’m going to go back to my real life afterwards. But the book did surprisingly well. And on top of that, I started to see that the kitchen, this place that I had always said I will never end up in was not a life sentence for women, like I had previously assumed. If anything, it was a powerful place from which to be able to share important history and information and effect change in the world that I wanted to leave behind for my kids.
Terry Gross
Growing up as a Palestinian Israeli, what rights did you have? And are there rights that you didn’t have that Jewish Israelis did?
Reem Kassis
So on paper, the rights are equal, you’re an Israeli citizen, the only difference is you don’t serve in the military. In reality, it wasn’t the case. For example, I mean, on a day to day living, you live in Arab neighborhoods, you pay the same taxes, etcetera, you don’t get the same services. In terms of travel. That’s where for me personally, that was the biggest nightmare going through airports was you would always get pulled aside, you would always get interrogated strip search. I still remember you know, my first strip. When I was working for McKinsey, I was traveling with my colleagues, and I’m the only Palestinian Israeli and the office in Tel Aviv. And they all pass through security and I get pulled aside and I get you know, interrogated and I have to take my clothes off. And I have to go through my bags. And eventually, they wrote a letter and I was not supposed to go through that again, because I was traveling with the company, but you start to see how it’s racial profiling. It’s not about the threat that I pose. And that was where you see, in spite of having citizenship, you’re a second class citizen in the country.
Terry Gross
Your husband is American of Palestinian descent. You’ve said that you don’t travel with him often to Israel because of the stress at the airport.
So part of the reason we moved to London when we decided to get married was that stress, I was living in Tel Aviv, he was living in Lebanon, so I cannot visit him naturally because my passport is Israeli. And for him to come visit me you know, we’re doing long distance we’re seeing each other on the weekend, he would spend five to six hours and interrogation on the way in and same on the way out. So you’re spending half that time basically at the airport. We ended up deciding that if we’re going to get married, we have to live somewhere else. And that’s where London came into the equation. Nowadays. It’s funny, you know, when we traveled back when we were first married, it was still difficult once we had kids. We walked through the airport and one lady asked him in Hebrew, he doesn’t speak Hebrew. I had to translate. She goes Do you remember what we did last time? And he you know, he said yes. And she goes now you have a kid go through. And it’s comic you know, I know you stories because it’s ridiculous to see how much of what happens is not for security purposes. It’s not for political reasons. It’s, I don’t know, to be perfectly honest with you, Terry, why it’s done that way other than to almost discourage people from going back. There’s this fear that Palestinians will come and stay and not leave. And that’s the question we’re asked every time at the airport do you intend to stay?
Reem Kassis
When you were growing up in East Jerusalem? Were there periods that were especially difficult? For instance, it’s like the Second Intifada, I think you were 13. During the Second Intifada, what was that like for you?
Reem Kassis
It was sad. Because the news is on 24/7 School was cancelled for weeks at a time. And you sit at home and you just watch TV with people basically getting shot and killed. And during that time, I other than feeling sadness for what was going on. I didn’t maybe affect me much kids are resilient, and they just, they don’t think as deeply about things. In hindsight, when I think of it, it’s very traumatic experience for someone at that age to go through to see that and assume that that is just day to day life. You know, I see what just being home during COVID has done to kids nowadays. And I think that experience is not a pleasant one for a teenager to go through. But it also is part of the reason why I think you mature and you grow up quicker.
Terry Gross
So during the period when schools were closed, could you go out of the house at all?
Reem Kassis
You could, but you would end up going to visit family or friends in periods of very high tension, you would not leave.
Terry Gross
Did food play an important part during that period? When you couldn’t, there was so much you couldn’t do?
Reem Kassis
I think so. I mean, when you’re sitting at home, and you’re not going anywhere, and there isn’t much to do you eat. And you also end up spending time with other people, your neighbors, your friends are coming over. And food is a way to spend the time and pass the time. I remember we would have relatives and friends who would come over and you would make cakes together or pastries. If it was a summer, you might sit outside and eat watermelon seeds. And it was just that’s why it’s so hard to juxtapose the positive angles of it, you know, I have memories of, and very fond memories of the time that was spent with close friends and family and relatives. And I think that and it was a happy time. And on the same hand it was during those times that there was so much brutality going on as well. And I think it’s an interesting juxtaposition to see that you can have the good and the bad happening at the same time.
Living in East Jerusalem, which is the Palestinian side of Jerusalem, were you able to cross over to the other side of the Jewish side of Jerusalem?
Reem Kassis
, it’s Western East Jerusalem. Again, it’s, you know, a geographic distinction, but it’s very intertwined. So when I look outside my bedroom window, I actually see a Jewish settlement across the street. And then you know, if you go to the left, you drive for 1520 minutes in Arab neighborhoods before you hit a Jewish one again. So you’re definitely able to cross into it. If you’re in Jerusalem, and people often do.
When there was a suicide bombing, how would that affect your daily life?
Reem Kassis
I think it would just make you a little more scared. So in periods where suicide bombings were more rampant, my parents would not allow us to go to the mall or to the town center or to restaurants even to supermarkets. So it would kind of just be a hunker down and wait for this wave to pass. But also, I mean, you would see it, you can’t escape it. You know, my father was behind a bus that was blown up at one point. And he just got home and he looked frazzled. And we asked what was wrong? And he said, the bus in front of me blew up and I had to take a different route home
Terry Gross
who blew up the bus? Do you know?
Reem Kassis
I don’t know the exact faction but one of the Palestinian factions claimed responsibility for it might have been Hamas might have been Islamic Jihad, I don’t remember.
Terry Gross
What was it like to be the possible victims of other Palestinians.
It’s a very difficult position to be in because on the one hand, you look at the situations that Palestinians live through, you see the despair, you see the death that they see you and you understand why they look at their lives, and they think I do have no outlet. I literally have nothing to live and look forward to. So there’s that sense of pity and sympathy, that allows you to understand why they’re doing something even if you disagree with it, and so on. So there’s that one hand on the other hand, I don’t think violence is ever the solution or the answer and we’ve seen now that that has pretty much subsided and died down. And it kind of forces you to think you know, what is the solution when you see these Things Yes, it’s scary. I could be the victim as well, which is why you avoid going out. But then to me it was, it’s not about protecting myself today, it’s about well, what do you do to make sure this doesn’t keep happening?
Terry Gross
So saying about Israeli Palestinian issues, is a landmine. And I can confirm that it is because of the feedback we get whenever we touch on those issues. Does it feel like a landmine for you living in the US, and being Palestinian and writing about Palestinian culture and writing about Palestinian food?
Reem Kassis
A little bit it does sometimes. And it’s sometimes it’s comical, because all it takes is for me to use the word Palestinian. And anything that I want to talk about no matter how far removed from politics suddenly is political. But at the same time, it’s it’s hard to separate the things you know, as Palestinians, as a people that do live under occupation, who are fighting for justice, it’s hard to separate that reality from anything else that we do. But I try to go about it. And you know, every person goes about it in a different way I am in the food and writing world. And that’s how I tried to address or deal with that issue. from that angle, and someone else in a different sphere might deal with it from a different angle. But yeah, it can be a landmine, but it shouldn’t be. And food is something everybody can enjoy. Food is the lowest common denominator we all have. It’s the one thing that regardless of where you come from, or what religion you are, or what your beliefs are, you have to eat. But do I believe that food can bring people together? I think that’s a stretch.
Terry Gross
You developed a friendship and a professional relationship with Michael Solomonov, who is the founder and chef at Zahav, which is an Israeli restaurant in Philadelphia. And so that’s been a kind of cross cultural, food, relationship and friendship, how did you end up developing a friendship?
Reem Kassis
So the first time I ever ate at Zahav, I was an undergrad student. And I remember going to that restaurant. And again, I was young, my mind wasn’t in politics, or food or any such thing. But I was nostalgic, and I miss tone. And I ate at his restaurant, a dish that very much reminded me of one that my mother makes Freek it. And I remember part of me feeling satisfied that I had eaten this dish that tasted of home and another part had felt extremely frustrated. Why am I eating the best Palestinian dish I’ve had since coming to the US and an Israeli restaurant. And then you fast forward 10 years. And I’m writing this book, on the one hand, yes, to safeguard our culture for my daughter and our culinary history, but in part also to show the world that this is our food that we’ve been eating for generations before Israel was even a state. And so when my book came out, I sent Mike a copy of the book with a handwritten letter, in part to say, you know, this is our food, this is what we’ve been cooking. And I told him about the frickin incident. And I think he was very touched by that I didn’t expect to hear from him when I sent the book. But he reached out and said, You know, I was very moved by your book, and he wanted to meet for coffee. And we did. And I was surprised to realize how many things get lost in translation, you see Mike, and you think he’s the face of Israeli cuisine, he must deny the or the Palestinian origins of the food he serves, he must be anti Palestinian, so on and so forth. And once you get to know someone on an individual level, you start to realize how many misconceptions you probably hold of that person. And that’s the beginning of that friendship.
Terry Gross
So you and Michael Solomon off of the Israeli restaurants, or have held an event at his restaurant, it was a dinner with dishes from your first cookbook, the Palestinian table. And then after that, you both faced some criticism, what was that about?
Reem Kassis
So one thing I always say it’s important to keep in perspective is how much criticism did we face you know, by and large, people were very supportive of that event. The criticism that we faced was this idea, you know, people were saying, for me, at least, you’re normalizing. And for those who are not familiar with the term normalization refers to a Palestinian doing an event with an Israeli person whose mission is not purely to discuss the occupation and ending the injustice that’s happening right now on the ground in Palestine. And I think part of that criticism was a result of misunderstanding the content So what was happening? You know, to me, I wrote this cookbook, in, in part to show that this is Palestinian cuisine and Palestinians have always said, We don’t care if Israelis cook or eat our food, we just want them to recognize that it’s ours. And here is Mike, who, for all intents and purposes, is the face of Israeli cuisine in the US, saying, I want to shut down my restaurant for the first time in the 10 years that it has been open, to recognize and celebrate Palestinian cuisine, and to acknowledge the role it has in the food that I cook. And to me, I saw that as a win for what I was doing. And so that’s why I say that criticisms were largely, you know, a, they were a minority, most people were supportive. And I think the criticisms that I faced were largely a result of a misunderstanding of the context of what was happening.
Terry Gross
And I should have mentioned that Michael Salah monos restaurants have, I think it was in 2019, when the James Beard Award for best restaurant in America. So it’s, it’s a, it’s considered a very important restaurant.
Reem Kassis
It’s very well recognized in the US. I’m sure it’s recognized abroad and in Israel to and for me, it’s I want people to recognize what our food is. And I’ve always said this, and I think my stance on the issue is very clear. I’ve written extensively on this. The issue is not about the food when it comes to Israelis and Palestinians. The issue is about the occupation and the injustice. And if that issue were to be resolved, then we would cease to see this contention. When it comes to the food, you know, you don’t see Lebanese and Syrians and Palestinians fighting over who invented homeless or who owns I mean, okay, we argue over who makes it better, but we’re not fighting about ownership of it. with Israel. It’s seen as Why are you willfully rewriting and denying the past? Basically, it’s a willful omission of any Palestinian connection, or contribution to this food because it is, it forces a reckoning with a narrative that has long been sold abroad of a land without a people for people without a land. And acknowledging the Palestinian place in that history, negates that narrative. And so for me, I think it is important when you see someone who is so recognized for Israeli cuisine, saying, Hey, I actually recognize that this is Palestinian food and a big portion of the majority of what I’m making, or at least used to make. And so when it first opened up, is inspired by Palestinian cooking.
Terry Gross
I think your father’s family’s land was confiscated during the 1948. War. Do I have that right? You do. And that your parents ended up buying a house on the land that was confiscated from their family?
Reem Kassis
Yeah, so my father is from a village in the Galilee. And they owned a lot of olive groves, in the surrounding area in 1948, much of the land and it wasn’t just them, it was all the families that live in the North had the same issue where land was confiscated. And you know, they’re offered payment for it, obviously, they refuse to accept payment, and the land is just taken. And then years and years down the line. We live in Jerusalem, we want a house and the North and the Galilee because we visit the family more everyone’s kids are grown up, families are bigger, you need more space, the town itself is too small. It’s very difficult to build or buy. So we decided to buy a house in the nearest Israeli town Academy Ale, which is an Israeli settlement built on the land that was confiscated from the north. So my parents ended up buying a house that’s on land that was confiscated from their town. And, you know, it was an interesting process to see, because the man they bought from was a very kind, you know, nice person, the neighbors said, Why are you selling your house to Arabs, you shouldn’t do this, etc. And it’s funny because now those same neighbors are good friends with my parents. And I think it speaks to what we discussed earlier how, when you get to know someone, individually, many misconceptions that you hold, go away.
Terry Gross
I see and your family managed to hold on to its olive grove.
Reem Kassis
A portion of them. I mean, what they hold on to now is a very small portion of what they had, historically.
Terry Gross
Did anyone on either side of your family become refugees, and live in refugee camps?
Reem Kassis
Reem Kassis
There were many that became refugees, but not in the sense that you think of today where they’re in camps and they’re in tents and whatnot. Many of them were forced to flee and they could not come back. So for example, before my father was born, my old This uncle fell ill in 1948. And my grandparents were forced to leave Haifa because it had fallen to the Jewish forces and they returned to their village, their son was sick, they could no longer take him back to the hospital there, they have to travel to Lebanon to have him treated. He unfortunately passed away their migrant grandmother gave birth to another son that she was pregnant with. And by the time she was a couple of months old, and they could travel back, Israel was a state and the borders were closed. So in the cover of night, they had to basically be smuggled back into their country because they had left another son there. And the man that helped smuggle them back was called Philip. And so when my father was born, a year after that’s where he got his name from. So my grandparents would have been refugees have that man not smuggled them in, but their cousins are refugees in Lebanon now.
Terry Gross
Do you think about that a lot.
Reem Kassis
I do. And more. So recently, you know, since I’ve started writing, I feel like a lot of these stories are ones that I don’t want to get lost. So I think about it, because I write about it. And I haven’t done much with it. But I you know, I published a short story that was based on not this particular example. But another story that happened with my family. And I think writing is my way of preserving these in a way that in spite of the pain that you see coming through them, you can also still find some beauty in it something that’s worth sharing.
Terry Gross
I’ve seen pictures of your kitchen. It’s a beautiful kitchen. It’s a modern kitchen, it looks so clean. And there’s jars of all kinds of things and cookbooks. And it just looks like such a lovely kitchen. But I was thinking about how different Your kitchen is, from your paternal grandmother’s kitchen. Yes, make the comparison for us.
Reem Kassis
So I think the scale of things in the US just doesn’t compare to the scale of things back home. You know, my parents and my paternal grandmother probably had more land than what our house sits on. And yet her kitchen was much smaller, and she was able to put out feasts from it. So my grandmother’s kitchen is basically a single wall of cabinets and right you know, there’s a refrigerator there. I don’t remember the days way back when refrigeration wasn’t common, and she was cooking on a single burner. But it’s funny when I think of that I think that kitchen was filled with so much love and almost like a pattern of human history that mine lacks. Yeah, mine is fresh and clean and new and modern and big. But it has not been lived in it has not been broken in yet. It doesn’t carry the history and its walls or the smells that hers did. And yes, it’s easier to cook in it. But there’s a sense of warmth i feel in her kitchen that mine has yet to develop.
Terry Gross
Well, it’s been a pleasure to talk with you about food and about your life. Thank you so much.
Reem Kassis
Thank you, Terry. It’s been a pleasure for me to
Terry Gross
Reem. Kassis is the author of the new book The arabesque table, contemporary recipes from the Arab world. Her first book is called The Palestinian table.