I found myself back at
Pita Pita again, hankering after more baba ganoush. Middle Eastern food is
undoubtedly my favourite cuisine. I remember determinedly plodding through
field after field looking for a falafel stand at Glastonbury that I found on a
drunken Thursday afternoon that seemed to have disappeared by Friday. I walked
through the healing field about four times on this mad mission for hummus.
I learnt more than I
thought I would over dinner. On display was a cookbook called 'Jerusalem' by
Yotam Ottolenghi and Sammi Tamimi, and I sat reading it after my meal. Both men
grew up in Jerusalem, Ottolenghi from the Jewish West side and Tamimi from the
Arab East, who's father also has Italian roots with Libyan influences. You can
imagine the delicious combination (try Gio's La Piazza in Manchester and you
will know what I am talking about!) Ottolenghi and Tamimi met and formed an
alliance in London over a passion for cooking.
'Jerusalem' is the most
descriptive, inspiring and personal cookbook I've ever come across, echoing the
tastes of the author's childhoods. The book begins with an insightful history
into fractured Jerusalem, something I had never taken the time to learn. It
captures beautifully the emotion attached to this city, a medieval map
depicting Jerusalem as the centre of the world, surrounded by the three
continents of Europe, Asia and Africa, thus showing the importance placed in
Jerusalem for centuries.
The book vividly describes
the passion, anger and ferocity of religion in the Holy Land between Muslims,
Jews and Christians. Where King David first made his settlement, where the
prophet Mohammed ascended to heaven and where Jesus Christ was crucified under
the Romans. A complicated history where the city has so often been taken,
destroyed and rebuilt. People who were forced out and came back fighting to
claim their home.
They talk of the
fierceness with which Jerusalemites believe in ownership, something tangible in
a land where their holy temples were burnt to the ground leaving only memory
and longing in its place. The struggle for Jerusalem continues to be
unbearable, each group wanting to call it theirs.
Ottolenghi and Tamimi link
this so beautifully to food, of which a similar passion is felt. They describe
how food has the potential to unite a nation rather than tear it apart,
alongside dreams of the same happening in terms of religion. Their view is that
food is about the moment, the right now, not the past that came before it. That
trying to claim ownership of a particular dish is ridiculous as we will never
be able to determine where hummus was first made. The joy and wonder of food is
in sharing, celebrating and coming together. The person who invented the dish
is irrelevant, an important inspiration, but ceases to matter as dishes evolve,
each person after adding their own twist, new flavours.
Ottolenghi and Tamimi
dream of Jerusalem declared as a World Heritage Sight and the Holy Land to
become a feast to which everyone is invited to share. I am strongly convinced
of the notion that hummus has the power to unite Jerusalem if nothing else
will. I hope Ottolenghi and Tamimi succeed in their mission.
There is so much variation
across the Middle East, but the core aspects are foods that grow seasonally,
the delicacy of sweet and savoury, sharp and spiced flavours together. Almonds,
courgette, Aubergine, apricots, artichokes, beetroot, figs, dates, lamb, zatar
spice. I am no expert but these are the aspects of cooking that excite me,
using what the ground offers you, what is intrinsic to your homeland.
My only experience of the
Middle East has been through food. I remember my best meal in Sri Lanka;
Shakshuka after a long surf session. Food had never tasted so nourishing,
authentic and delicious. Food has the power to transcend and reach other
people's lives. We are incredibly lucky in our cosmopolitan world that food
from across the globe is brought to us, as people continually travel, bringing
with them a piece of home. Never underestimate the value of what there is to
learn from what we taste.
Food is powerful and
emotive. In a small restaurant in Nicaragua I found my mind broadened, hungry
to know more about a different culture and my quest for hummus, baba ganoush
and tatziki scooped up with warm, soft pita bread satisfied for at least one
evening.
Imogen
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