This Week in Palestine: My Mother, My Grandmother, and the Food They Made by Rana Abdulla

"Although zaatar is unique in Palestinian cooking, it is more than just something to eat. It is a powerful cultural symbol; and it is the aroma in every Palestinian home. It is the wild thyme that is handpicked as it flourishes on the mountains of occupied Palestine during spring. It conveys the smell of Palestinian soil, leaving me with many indefinable memories. Palestinians adore it. Palestinian travellers always take it with them as a gift to pass on, the scent of their luggage betraying the contents. It is said that you can identify Palestinian travellers by the smell of zaatar and meramiya (sage) amongst their belongings. These scents have an effect on the Palestinian people and have become the anchors of memory that signify their lost villages and homes." Rana Abdulla 

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http://www.thisweekinpalestine.com/details.php?id=4051&ed=220&edid=220

We begin this story with the search for the best Palestinian recipes, weaving the traditional culinary palette into a tantalising experience. This later becomes a search for personal cultural identity. When pondering on my childhood experiences, I remember my mother’s lovely features and her delicate soft skin as she began her day early and ended it late, completing all her housework. Amongst my warmest memories, I recollect how she sang as she cooked. As a child I observed her in her solitude picking stones from the lentils with joyous care, as if picking flowers from the garden, giving her fulfilment. My mother, Fatme Hamshari, loved to cook alone. Every day she baked a fresh loaf of homemade bread in the taboun, our mud-and-clay hearth oven used by the fellaheen. She taught me how to mix the flour and water, the yeast and sugar, then knead the dough, cover it with a clean cloth, and let it rise in a warm place; afterwards it would be cut into round pieces and covered again to protect its face. She made sure that I cleaned my hands with dry flour after preparing the bread dough. She never allowed me to touch the oven or to cook or bake.

My mother taught me primarily by example how to run an organised home - ironing our clothes and taking care of the many other household duties; most important of all, personal cleanliness. Growing up in our family environment, I learnt self-discipline. I was able to defer gratification and never just accept the status quo. The smell, presentation, and taste of the fresh bread and zaatar that she prepared inspired me. Everything she did gave her enjoyment and invigorated her spirit. Every move she made in the kitchen was accompanied with a smile, an expression of tremendous love that charmed me completely. She taught us about Palestinian folklore by memorising people’s stories and linking them to our life events. She had the ability to weave dynamic, accurate accounts of life and past events that are still alive in my mind as if they were happening at this very moment. She knew every village of Palestine.

My grandmother influenced us a lot with her tasty recipes. She would prepare the most incredible salads and cook nutritious, flavourful dishes, which would be both tasty and, at the same time, packed with an assortment of elements good for the body and soul. Zaatar, for example, is an herb that is strongly associated with the Palestinian identity. Poets, writers, and artists often refer to it in their works.

Although zaatar is unique in Palestinian cooking, it is more than just something to eat. It is a powerful cultural symbol; and it is the aroma in every Palestinian home. It is the wild thyme that is handpicked as it flourishes on the mountains of occupied Palestine during spring. It conveys the smell of Palestinian soil, leaving me with many indefinable memories. Palestinians adore it. Palestinian travellers always take it with them as a gift to pass on, the scent of their luggage betraying the contents. It is said that you can identify Palestinian travellers by the smell of zaatar and meramiya (sage) amongst their belongings. These scents have an effect on the Palestinian people and have become the anchors of memory that signify their lost villages and homes.

Zaatar is dried in early summer, mixed with sumac and sesame, and stored for later use. It can be added to chicken dishes, baked into plain dough, or put on salads. This herbal condiment has been made this way for generations. Well-known for its salty, tangy taste, zaatar is an excellent savoury complement to salads, cheese, and biscuits, as well as a delicious appetizer before almost any evening meal. It is perfect as a seasoning for meat, fish, or vegetables, or simply made into a paste with Palestinian extra virgin olive oil. No preservatives or additives are used in any part of its creation. Zaatar is high in anti-oxidants.

In Palestine, “making zaatar” refers to baking oiled flatbread stuffed with newly gathered fresh zaatar and green onions. For many it is a seasonal rite as well as a communal cooking project, usually in an outdoor oven. For breakfast, people sprinkle the zaatar mixture on pita drizzled with olive oil, and eat it accompanied by mint tea. Zaatar can be used to marinate chicken and fish as well as grilled or roasted vegetables. It can be used for dips, sprinkled on labneh and hummos, eaten with feta cheese and olive oil, or served with pita chips and crudités. Palestinians seem to have an inherent knowledge of which foods and herbs are best suited to a particular situation, time, ailment, or celebration. Zaatar is believed to be an immune-system booster and an aid to digestion. Some claim that it relieves headaches and has antibacterial properties. Palestinians believe that zaatar is effective in making the mind alert and the body significantly stronger.

Zaatar, sometimes translated as hyssop, is a stout, many-stemmed grey, fuzzy shrub, about two feet tall. In summer its white, rather small flowers are grouped in dense spikes on the upper part of the branches. The taste of zaatar is similar to oregano. It is part of the marjoram family. Its Latin name is Origanum syriacum. Zaatar belongs to the Labiatae (or Lamiaceae) family, which includes mint, sage, basil, rosemary, thyme, and many other aromatic plants. A distinctive feature of all the plants of the Labiatae family is the flowers with petals resembling upper and lower lips. Many plants of this family are aromatic and have square stems when cut crosswise, but this is not universal. Zaatar bread - also known as fatayer fallahi, which means villagers’ pie - is a typical Palestinian pastry that is usually made in spring, which is the official season for collecting fresh wild thyme. It is flatbread, oily but crunchy, and stuffed with fresh zaatar leaves, onions, and sumac.

Fatayer Zaatar Recipe
Dough:
3 cups white flour
1 teaspoon instant yeast
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon sugar
1/4 cup olive oil 
    
Filling:
2 to 3 cups fresh zaatar leaves (thyme), washed thoroughly
1 medium-size onion, finely chopped
1 tablespoon sumac
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons olive oil

Dough: In a medium-size bowl, combine flour, yeast, salt, sugar, and olive oil. Rub the mixture together until the oil is well combined with the flour. Gradually add one cup of warm water while kneading using one hand (add more water if the dough is dry or more flour if it is too sticky). Cover the bowl with a plastic bag and place it in a warm place for about 30 to 40 minutes or until doubled in size.

Filling: In another bowl, combine zaatar (thyme) leaves, chopped onions, sumac, salt, and olive oil. Mix all together and set aside.

Cut the dough to form three or four balls. Using a rolling pin, roll out each ball on a hard surface that is greased with olive oil until you make a paper-thin sheet of dough. Another option is to use your hands to punch down the dough until it becomes so thin that you can’t punch it further (don’t worry if the dough ends up with some holes).

Add a pinch of zaatar stuffing and a pinch of olive oil to the dough sheet, fold two sides of the dough to the middle. Add another pinch of zaatar stuffing and fold the dough. Keep adding a pinch of zaatar and folding the dough until you can’t fold it any further.

Place stuffed dough pieces on an oven tray greased with olive oil. Flatten the dough pieces with your hands. Place the tray in a preheated oven for about 10 minutes or until they become slightly brown or golden. Flip them over and leave them for another 5 minutes. It’s best when served hot to enjoy the crunchiness of the bread. This is usually served with fresh yogurt or tea.

Palestinian girls, including myself, were eager to marry young and have children as did our mothers and grandmothers before us. My mother raised me with a sense of duty and love for the family. However, I didn’t grow up cooking and didn’t realise that cooking was part of the many responsibilities of marriage. I moved into my husband’s home with only one recipe in my culinary repertoire: fried eggs. My first cooking experience was with rice. I filled the pot with the full 10-pound bag of rice not realising that it would double in size. The rice rapidly expanded while it cooked, resulting in lots of foam and an explosive boil-over. I slumped into a chair and cried about my lack of culinary skills. The stove and the kitchen floor took hours to clean and the rice ended up in the garbage bin. To my surprise, I was assured I’d be taught how to cook. This formed part of my cultural identity. I still learn something new in the Palestinian kitchen every day.

My grandmother made many elaborate recipes in a flash; she was a fast and efficient cook. Her ability to produce traditional dishes amazed us. She added her own hints and touches to the dishes, which never failed to mesmerise us.

My mother and grandmother live on through me and their recipes.

Rana Abdulla is a Palestinian Canadian from the village of Bal’a, Tulkarem. She is a Canadian Certified Public Accountant who graduated from Thompson Rivers University in British Columbia and St. Lawrence College in Ontario. Her career has been a blend of taxation, auditing, and refugee advocacy. She also taught accounting for college students at Algonquin College in Ottawa, Ontario. In addition to Arabic, she is fluent in French and English.

See PDF www.thisweekinpalestine.com/i183/pdfs/article/my_mother.pdf

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Picturesque Palestine
The Harvest; oil on canvas, 1977, by Suleiman Mansour.