Completing the Circle: My Search for Identity
The following was originally published in the print and digital Deluxe Food Edition. Order a print or digital copy to support the only Palestinian magazine in the United States.
In January 2023, a new restaurant opened up in London, in the trendy district of Notting Hill. Everyone was talking about akub, a Palestinian restaurant. I was astonished that they could so brazenly claim to be Palestinian — not Middle Eastern or from the Levant, just Palestinian. I couldn’t wait to go.
I remember everything about that first visit. On a dark, rainy February evening, opening the door into this modern, stylish but cozy place, I immediately felt the significance of what was to come. There was framed Palestinian embroidery — tatreez — and olive branches hanging on the walls. But the antique keys drilled into the walls stood out the most for me and sent shivers down my spine. They are the symbol of the Nakba in 1948.
When Palestinians were forcibly evicted from their homes by the Israelis, they took their keys with them hoping to return. My father had one, and like many of his countrymen, never used it again. He hid his story, covered up his trauma, and in turn, I hid mine. But here, they were on display; it was time to stop hiding and assert my past.
I was bowled over by the food, too. No hummus or mixed grills, no shish taouk or shawarma. The menu listed traditional dishes Palestinians ate at home, dishes made by their mothers and grandmothers, such as mussakhan, mansaf, and freekeh. And in this food, I tasted my childhood. Flavors I had long forgotten resurfaced. Dishes we had as a family when I was little — but had since disappeared from my life like freekeh — came back to me. My mother’s favorite, Nnabulsi cheese, was in a restaurant in my corner of London. The restaurant has become my favorite since that first visit.
I left akub that night a slightly different person. I pushed for a review of the restaurant for a local magazine and wrote one that’s more personal than any I will ever write. I openly declared my Palestinian roots, I came out.
So much became clear after that. It wasn’t just me who was conditioned to keep their Palestinian identity under wraps. This was one part of the hugely successful cancellation culture Israel and its allies have waged since 1948. Many Palestinians in the diaspora feared reprisal and exclusion for mentioning the word “Palestinian.” It’s “too political,” we are told time and time again (Zahira Jaser’s article “Coming Out as Palestinian” in the Financial Times from March 30, 2024, is a must-read).
I had a small voice through food writing, and I was determined to use it. I reached out to other Palestinian foodies who were working tirelessly in the face of adversity and continuous threats while promoting the best of this culture. People like chefs Fadi Kattan (akub and author of “Bethlehem: A Celebration of Palestinian Food”), and Blanche Shaheen (author of “Feast in the Middle East: A Personal Journey of Family and Cuisine”). Upon reading that Sue Quinn, a prominent U.K.-based food writer, having been to Palestine, had tried to write about Palestinian food for the mainstream media but was told it was “too political,” I knew what to do.
I was aware that the Amos Trust, a U.K. charity, organizes “Taste of Palestine” tours. I got in touch with one of their trustees, Gemma Bell, to see if we could put one together for a host of diverse food writers, including myself. I figured that the more writers who pitch for Palestinian food articles, the bigger the chance that some of these will get published and Palestinian food can be talked about, freely and proudly. For the first time, the possibility of going to visit the land of my parents, a place I knew so little about and had been warned away from, became a reality. They couldn’t return, but I could for them.
I met Bell over lunch at akub, again, to discuss this plan. But time wasn’t on our side. It was October 2023 and the war on Gaza was about to start. Plans have stalled, temporarily.
It was the genocide in Gaza that cleared away any remaining cobwebs of shame and secrecy looming over my Palestinian identity. The injustice of it meant that I could no longer stay silent. The rage and pain I felt seeing my people decimated, hospitals razed to the ground, children shot in the head as they played in the street, and starvation used as a weapon made me want to scream and shout. For my mother and father and every single innocent life extinguished in Palestine since, I now say I am proudly Palestinian.
Qurban
Just like my mother, my love language is food. When I don’t know what to say, I bake instead. When a close friend in London who’s also a Christian Palestinian lost his mum to COVID-19 in Lebanon, and we couldn’t see each other due to the pandemic lockdown, I knew what I wanted to bake for him: Qurban (holy bread). I made a batch and left it on his doorstep. It lifts the spirit of both those who make and receive it.
Since that first bake, I have honed this recipe each time I use it. Qurban is a round-shaped bread, which for me represents my journey in completing the circle of my search for identity. Here is the recipe:
