When I Try Modernizing Palestinian Cuisine, I Am Not Trying To Make It Acceptable To People. When I Think

THE FUNAMBULIST MAGAZINE

Cooking Palestinian Food: on Indigenous Herbs, Craft, and Community

This discussion between Karim Kattan and his brother, Chef Fadi Kattan, attempts to illustrate, sometimes with humor, several political dime

When I try modernizing Palestinian cuisine, I am not trying to make it acceptable to people. When I think of a dish, I don’t ask myself: “Is this gonna please the Europeans or the Americans or the Chinese?” I try to create a dish that is respectful of the flavors, and that has an identity that is very much mine. For instance, I love working with freekeh and I know you hate it. Still in my set menu, I try to force down your throat some freekeh. You know I could make an effort when ì know you’re coming over for dinner and not cook it but if I happen to have a vegetable that works well with it, well I still cook freekeh, whether you like it or not! Don’t forget, cooking is a magic act, a sacred moment. This is why I am in the kitchen. I was recently speaking to Paris-based Japanese writer, Ryoko Sekiguchi, and we came up with this concept of “cooking of light,” “la cuisine de lumière”) [”hikari no ryôri”] and she linked it to another concept that she came up with Japanese chef Shûichirô Kobori, namely “cooking of prayer,” “la cuisine de prière” [”inori no ryôri”]. Cooking is a sacred moment of intimacy and of creation, which requires respect. We have such particularities in our kitchen, that we should be putting forward and that we should be protecting from all those coexistence and peace initiatives, which are not really about peace and coexistence. Peace is about justice. When sometimes people ask me: “Would you work with an Israeli chef?” I say: “My conditions if an Israeli chef wants to work with me are that she or he has to accept a Palestinian state with the 1967 borders, accept Jerusalem as the capital of two states, accept the right of return of Palestinians refugees. If there is a resolution that is just to our rights as Palestinians of course I will work with an Israeli chef.” But as long as there is no justice and equality there’s no way I could work with an Israeli chef.

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ineedfugo

1 year ago

I have zionists in my notes protesting that by sharing these staggering numbers we just want to make israel out to be "the worst" and uhh hear me out, israel has been working overtime to let the whole world see how evil and demonic they are by literally filming themselves committing their heinous crimes and gloating about them publicly... where have u been?? Israel's been advertising being the worst.

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ineedfugo

1 year ago

Pre Valentine's prep

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ineedfugo

1 year ago

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ineedfugo

3 months ago

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ineedfugo

11 months ago

April, discovering an entire Hidden City beneath NYC and going up against a fish-man making, warring warrior scientist:

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ineedfugo

1 year ago

"B-but Palestinians can get their freedom with peace not violence 🥺🥺" no. Screw your feelings. The armed resistance against colonizers and murderers is what will give Palestinians their freedom and what will eventually achieve real peace.

An enemy that bombs and uses white phosphorus against civilians doesn't know nor practice what your broken moral compass describes as "peace". Freedom was proven throughout history not to be achieved through kneeling and asking the oppressor to kindly stop. Freedom needs to be taken by force. Your little Utopian way of thinking doesn't work in the real world. Your feelings don't matter because you're not the one living under occupation. Your feelings don't matter because you're not one of the thousands of children who lost their limbs. You're not one of the children who became orphans due to this genocide. You're not the mother who lost her child to the carpet bombing. You're not the father carrying the remains of your child in plastic bags. You're not the newlywed woman who lost her husband. You're not the one at risk of either getting killed any second or losing your loved ones in the blink of an eye!

"Peace" is not really a thing you see during a live ethnic cleansing!

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ineedfugo

1 year ago

PLEASE UNMUTE THIS. PLEASE.

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ineedfugo

1 year ago

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ineedfugo

1 year ago

those being the accompanying tags and not "free palestine" or "gaza" or "israeli apartheid" even though when you click on the tag and scroll through, thats all there is, speaks VOLUMES.

tumblr needs to stop riding the zionist occupations dick. i hate this hellsite.

free palestine. free gaza. fuck "israel".

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ineedfugo

1 year ago