The Gaza Kitchen: A Palestinian Culinary Journey - Softcover

El-Haddad, Laila; Schmitt, Maggie

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1935982230 ISBN 13: 9781935982234

Publisher: Just World Books, 2013

Synopsis

The Gaza Kitchen is a richly illustrated cookbook that explores the distinctive cuisine and food heritage of the area known prior to 1948 as the Gaza District—and that of the many refugees from elsewhere in Palestine who came to Gaza in 1948 and have been forced to stay there ever since. In summer 2010, authors Laila El-Haddad and Maggie Schmitt traveled the length and breadth of the Gaza Strip to collect the recipes presented in the book. They were also able to build on the extensive knowledge that Laila, herself a Palestinian from Gaza, had gained from family and friends throughout the years.

• Read Advance Praise for The Gaza Kitchen from celebrated chefs and writers

The 130 recipes presented in this book have all been thoroughly kitchen-tested. Amounts are presented using U.S.-style measures, and the authors suggest alternative ingredients and recipe adaptations for cooks working in the United States or other countries where some of the ingredients may not be easy to find. Numerous illustrations help readers understand how to perform the listed techniques—and what the finished product should look like!

But The Gaza Kitchen is not only a cookbook. A lot of other things happen in the kitchen as well as cooking: conversations, the re-telling of family histories, and the daily drama of surviving and creating spaces for pleasure in an embattled place. In this book, women and men from throughout Gaza tell their stories as they relate to cooking, farming, and the food economy: personal stories, family stories, and descriptions of the broader social and economic system in which they live.

When Laila and Maggie launched this project in 2009, they wrote:

Why do we want to talk about food and cooking?

Because food is the essence of the everyday. Beyond all the discourses, the positions and the polemics, there is the kitchen.  And even in Gaza, that most tortured little strip of land, hundreds of thousands of women every day find ways to sustain their families and friends in body and spirit.  They make the kitchen a stronghold against despair, and there craft necessity into pleasure and dignity.

Gaza has a rich food tradition and a unique cuisine combining Levantine and Egyptian elements. The history of its population can be traced through its recipes, which reflect the influence of exile from all over Palestine as well as a changing society and customs. A cookbook which brings together these recipes serves as testimony to this heritage and history.

What is more, today's kitchens can tell us much about the difficult and paradoxical realities of Gaza after three years of unrelenting siege: which products are available and where they are coming from (tunnels, local agriculture, humanitarian relief), how cooks manage with extreme shortages of gas and electricity, how families reorganize to compensate for destroyed homes and near-universal joblessness.  To spend a day with a Gazan woman doing the shopping and cooking is to understand the Palestinian reality from an entirely different – more material, more intimate – perspective. It is to appreciate the strength and endurance which allows these women every day to confront a hopeless situation and to create within it small spaces of grace, beauty and generosity.

Just World Books is honored to have been able to work with Maggie and Laila in the preparation of this unique contribution to the study of the world's food heritage.

About this title

Product Description:

The Gaza Kitchen is a richly illustrated cookbook that explores the distinctive cuisine of the area known prior to 1948 as the Gaza Districtand that of the many refugees who came to Gaza in 1948 and have been forced to stay there ever since. In summer 2010, Laila El-HaddadandMaggie Schmitttraveled throughout the Gaza Strip to collect the recipes and shoot the stunning photographs presented in the book. The Gaza Kitchen's 130 recipes codify this little-known part of the Middle Eastern culinary canon for the first time ever-- in any language. But this is not just a cookbook. In its pages, women and men from Gaza tell their stories as they relate to cooking, farming, and the food economy: personal stories, family stories, and descriptions of the broader social and economic system in which they live. Former Senior Food Writer for the New York Times Nancy Harmon Jenkins introduces the book, and Gaza's cuisine, in her very well-informed Foreword."

About the Author:

Laila El-Haddad is co-editor of Gaza Unsilenced (2015), co-author of The Gaza Kitchen: A Palestinian Culinary Journey (2013), and the author of Gaza Mom (2010). She is a talented writer, analyst, and social activist, and a policy advisor for Al-Shabaka, the Palestinian Policy Network.Born in Gaza, El-Haddad currently lives in Columbia, Maryland. Her co-author on The Gaza Kitchen, Maggie Schmitt, is a writer, researcher, translator, educator, and social activist. She holds a B.A. from Harvard in Literature and has conducted advanced graduate studies at the Universidad Autonoma de Madrid. Schmitt, who lives near Madrid, works in various media to explore the daily practices of ordinary people living in the Mediterranean region.

About this edition

• Publisher: Just World Books
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 1935982230
• ISBN 13: 9781935982234
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 140