‘I want people to taste Palestine’: Eman Aburabi of Izz Café on new cookbook

Coming into the bright yellow restaurant with its fragrant cloud of comforting za’atar, sumac, cardamom and coffee, one word springs immediately to mind: Home.

This beacon of Palestinian cuisine, community and conversation is as close to the dream of home Palestinians in Cork may ever get. To taste home is to believe. Fuel for hope.

In their strictest sense, recipes are an instruction for creating a dish from a list of ingredients and a method. But recipes are also vessels for memory, fleeting moments of connection that somehow remain forever.

In this way, recipes tell us much more than how to get from A to B. They are stories of a time, a gathering, a culture, the evocative aroma of spices, spikey notes of citrus and grassy tones of olive oil. They tell us of real people and places separated by distance, history and, yes, even war.

Jibrin is the 15th cookbook from Blasta Books that amplify voices, recipes and cultures of Ireland’s new diaspora, and the first collection of recipes from husband-and-wife duo Izzeddeen Alkarajeh and Eman Aburabi, founders of Izz Café in Cork.

It is Eman’s food that fills bellies and hearts when eating at their popular restaurant, cooked from recipes learned at her mother’s apron strings.

Given events of the past two years in Palestine, what might have started as a project to share recipes served at Izz Café has transformed into an act of emergency to preserve an important aspect of Palestinian heritage and culture: its food.

“I remember my mother was in the kitchen every day cooking for us,” says Eman. “We were a big family of 11. Always the kitchen was full of smells - the good smells. When I see my mom cooking, she is never angry about preparing the food. She is cooking with love. I saw that from her. I saw how cooking reminds me to share as well. The smell of our spices and dishes, it really makes me love to cook every day.”

Jibrin (pronounced “jib-REEN”) is named after Eman’s home town of Beit Jibrin at the foot of the Hebron Mountains near the West Bank. Her family fled to Jordan in 1948 after the Nakba (occupation), where Eman was raised on memories of Palestine through food cooked by her mother and stories of happier times told by her father.

“All Palestinians have in their mind they will return some day. This was my father’s dream, and he gave that dream to me. He was always talking with us about Beit Jibrin, and I grew with these stories in my heart.

“My father didn’t return, and when I visited Palestine last year for the first time in my life, as an Irish citizen, I still couldn’t go because it was not safe. So maybe my kids will go there some day. I’m sure I will; I still have hope. We always have hope, to consign to be free and go back to our roots.

“For me, the name Jibrin is more than a name. It means something really deep. When I passed the border into Palestine for the first time, it was like the world opened for me. I wanted to cry; I wanted to laugh. I felt like I knew these places; that somehow these were not new for me, like I knew everything there is in this place as if I had been there before.

“We grew up with these places, so it is like a history for us. Everything about our history, our country, our cities; all our recipes and dishes remind us of Palestine and our village, Beit Jibrin.”

The recipes in Jibrin are Eman’s way of remembering, celebrating, and sharing her heritage and culture.

“I don’t like to change the traditional way to cook [a dish]. If I want to cook Musakhan (sumac chicken and onions on flatbread), I always try to do it how it has always been done because I feel it’s the real taste - the first taste.”

There’s a triumvirate of flavours that are a signature of Palestinian cuisine: za’atar, olive oil and sumac. In Palestine, olive and sumac harvesting season are close together, but while getting good olive oil in Cork is easy, sourcing freshly prepared sumac isn’t.

“Sumac was hard to find here; it’s usually a small bag and old. It’s right to a point, but it’s not the same because we know the real flavour and I don’t feel good if I don’t serve something the right way,” says Eman.

“I want people to taste Palestine; to taste the real Musakhan. That’s why Izz asks his family every season to prepare sumac for us. They buy seeds, send it to be ground, put it in bags, and send it to us here in Ireland. It’s expensive, but I want to use the real one.”

Despite its obvious luxury to Eman, sumac is used generously in many dishes. Its sour, lemony taste is versatile, elevating chicken, fish, salads and vegetables. There is much talk of umami and the elusive fifth taste. Maybe sumac is the fifth taste in Palestinian food?

“Sumac is a wild plant only available at certain times of the year. It’s good with everything and just gives something. Middle East countries (Jordan, Lebanon, Syria), our food is similar but in a different way, yet they all know sumac is Palestinian.

“The most famous dish in Palestine is Musakhan because it uses lots of sumac, olive oil, and braised onions. The sumac gives the dish a value. It’s very rich, very tasty, simple and easy, but it tastes as though you feel the world!”

Jibrin is an education in flavours, textures, and tastes of this comforting cuisine, but it also talks of regionality. Where Eman is from, dishes are based around a hardened preserved form of sheep or goat yogurt called jameed while traditional Gazan dishes are fresher, zingier, making liberal use of chillies.

Habib Alostaz is from Gaza and works as a chef at Izz Café. Eman and Habib have learned from each other about the different dishes from coastal Gaza to inland Hebron and even the desert cuisine of Jordan. But the fragmentation of Palestine is reflected in a sometimes fragmented knowledge of regionalised dishes.

“We are all Palestinians, we are all the same despite what we see on the map,” says Eman.

“We always dream of visiting Gaza because there is no way to go there. I dream of going there because I know their cuisine is very rich and totally different. They have their way how to cook, and they use lots of chilli.”

Two dishes in Jibrin represent the similarity and difference that Eman is trying to bridge.

Mansaf is a Jordanian dish of slow-cooked lamb with yogurt, while Sumagiyya is a Palestinian sumac stew which also uses slow-cooked lamb, sumac and tahini. Eman taught Habib how to cook Mansaf, and Habib taught Eman how to cook Sumagiyya.

“Sumagiyya in Palestine is like Mansaf in Jordan. It’s served at weddings, funerals and big occasions; it’s food for happy and sad times. Everybody has their own way to serve these dishes that are different,” says Eman.

“We are Palestinian, but we met not there but in Cork. It’s sad that we can’t meet in our country, and we are far away from Palestine, but we just make Palestine here because we feel at home.”

Jibrin contains just 29 recipes from a cuisine that’s ancient and diverse, and many will be familiar to café regulars: Magloubeh, Dawali, Manaeesh za’atar, Musakhan, Nabulsi knafeh.

“Palestinian cuisine is very rich. I can’t count how many recipes we have. It’s a lot!” says Eman.

“When you live under an occupation, things can be cut off from you – money, food, roads. I talk about Palestinian women, how they are strong, how they carry their families. I never heard my mother, grandma or aunts saying they didn’t have something to cook. They just go to the kitchen, open the fridge or cabinet, and come with a dish.

“I feel I have to save this; I have to keep it, I have to write it down for others; for my kids, my friends, my Irish friends, my Jordanian friends, my other-nationality friends. I want them to know about our cuisine.

“When they open the café door, they smell the za’atar, the sumac, the olive oil. I want everyone to feel home, and I’m so happy when we hear from customers that they feel they are home. This is what I want.”

Eman’s favourite recipe in Jibrin is for Dawali, vine leaves stuffed with rice and vegetables simmered until soft in a lemony stock. Dawali reminds Eman of sitting at a table with her mother and sister, learning the correct way to fill and roll the leaves to her mother’s exacting standards.

“Making Dawali reminds me of my mother when I was small, like my daughter is now. I do the same with my daughters now; we sit at the table, and I teach them how to do it. My daughter, Jouri, can make them perfectly.”

Of all the recipes in Jibrin, Eman would encourage everyone to make Freekeh, a roasted green wheat with a distinctive smoky flavour and versatile texture. It can be served with slow-cooked lamb or beef, and Gazan Salad (recipe below).

“It means a lot to all of us to be able to make this book. I hope people will not just read it, but feel it and know about our history, our culture, our love.”

GAZAN SALAD

Originating in the coastal Gaza Strip, this salad is enjoyed year-round, but especially during warmer months, as a refreshing side dish or part of a mezze spread.

Ingredients (serves 4–6)

• 1 fresh green chilli, finely diced
• 1 garlic clove, finely diced
• 1 tbsp olive oil, plus extra to garnish
• 1 lemon
• 3 ripe tomatoes, finely diced
• ½ cucumber, finely diced
• 1 bunch of fresh dill, chopped
• 1 sprig of fresh mint, leaves chopped, plus extra to garnish
• pinch of salt

Method

• Put the green chilli and garlic in a pestle and mortar and pound together into a paste. Add the olive oil and mix to combine.
• Cut a small, thin ‘cheek’ off of one side of the lemon, then dice it very finely, rind and all.
• Add the diced lemon to the pestle and mortar along with the tomatoes, cucumber, dill and mint. Gently crush everything together – you’re not pounding here, as you want the vegetables to keep their texture. Add a pinch of salt and a squeeze of lemon juice, then stir them in with a spoon.
• Transfer to a serving bowl and finish with a generous drizzle of olive oil.
• Garnish with a small sprig of mint and serve fresh.