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Palestinians cook new food trends – Middle East News – Report by AFR

From the ancient streets of Jerusalem’s Old City to cuisines around the world, Palestinians are stirring up new trends in cuisine while clinging to traditions.

The trend has fueled a growing appetite for reference books and food tours.

“It’s changing for the better, I think. Many Palestinians are keen to promote their food,” Nassar Odeh said as the smell of ovens wafted across a Jerusalem street.

The Palestinian entrepreneur has spent the last few months seeing foodies coming and going in and out of his new Taboon restaurant, which is named after the traditional clay oven.

Customers feast on dishes like the Armenian lamajoon, a thin mince and spice pizza that Odeh recalls being sold to hungry crowds in the old town decades earlier.

“Armenian dishes are part of Palestinian culture,” said Odeh, whose bar also serves beers and wines from the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

“This is extremely important because it emphasizes the Palestinian presence and entrepreneurship,” he said. “We must be proud of our products.”

– ‘New concept, new ideas’ –

Taboon opened last year in the family’s former souvenir shop and is part of a range of new Palestinian bars, cafes and restaurants.

Beyond the walls of the Old City, they have sprung up in other areas of annexed East Jerusalem such as the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood or further afield in Ramallah in the West Bank.

They range from an upscale dining experience to fusion menus that mix Palestinian ingredients with European dishes, according to Izzeldin Bukhari, who leads food tours and cooking classes in Jerusalem.

“It’s a great start, we’re just getting started,” said Bukhari, who plans to offer consulting services to business owners looking to revitalize their restaurants.

“Everybody kind of did the same thing, but lately I see people stepping up and coming up with a new concept, new ideas,” he said.

Showcasing the range of Palestinian dishes and products remains central to Dalia Dabdoub, who runs Taboon and owns bars in the West Bank cities of Bethlehem and Jericho.

“We want to change the industry by making more foods that people don’t know about,” she said.

A variety of locally renowned eggplants, sourced from Battir, a village in the Bethlehem area, will soon be on the Taboon menu, while some produce will be imported from Gaza.

“I always try to pick the tomatoes; if they come from Gaza, they are really red and tastier,” said Dabdoub.

Green chillies from Gaza, on the other hand, are particularly hot.

The emergence of new restaurants builds on the history of hole-in-the-wall spots in Old Town that specialize in a single dish like falafel.

Palestinian chef Sami Tamimi grew up eating home cooking, such as

“I remember grabbing a plate and going to the hummus guy,” Tamimi said, talking eagerly about beloved dishes like stuffed grape leaves and zucchini.

Such traditional dishes and contemporary takes have been compiled in the Chef’s 2020 cookbook: “Falastin”.

“Ten years ago, if you went to a publisher and said I wanted to publish a book about Palestinian food, they said, ‘Who’s going to buy it?'” said Tamimi, who moved to London more than two decades ago.

– ‘A Wonderful Thing’ –

A growing interest in Palestinian food abroad has been coupled with a move away from presenting Mediterranean or Middle Eastern cuisine as a set of recipes.

“Nowadays you’re more focused on the country or the place and your food… I think that’s a wonderful thing,” said Tamimi, who has a number of cookbooks and runs restaurants with Israeli business partner Yotam Ottolenghi.

Israelis have proven more successful than Palestinians in branding local cuisine, Bukhari noted, including a picture of an Israeli flag on falafel at Tel Aviv airport.

“They are very good at marketing it,” said the SacredCuisine founder. “We leave a gap for the Israelis to talk about our food.”

But Palestinians are catching up internationally, and Bethlehem-based chef Fadi Kattan is set to open a restaurant in London later this year.

Tamimi himself will briefly return to Jerusalem in October for a stay at the historic American Colony Hotel.

Its two-week menu follows a previous event there, when the chef saw how much had changed in the city’s food scene.

“It was the first time I worked with a whole team of Palestinians,” he said.

#Palestinians #cook #food #trends

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