Love, Food, Music

On a recent afternoon of culinary creation, we were musing about the way in which the two earthly blessings of food and music have always gone hand in hand in our experience. This is true in more ways than one. The simplest example is, like many others, we love to have songs playing in the background as we cook in the kitchen, bopping along as we beat, chop and stir.

We do have our time-honoured go-tos, but our melodic choices can also depend on our mood or situation: reflective and acoustic music when we are having a laid-back day of refining recipes, and perhaps something more upbeat when we are working towards a tight deadline of orders.

Another parallel between the two is that food has the power to bring people together, just as music does. By trying different foods from the four corners of the world, not only are we introduced to new flavours, but also to different cultures through a deeper understanding of their cuisines. Likewise, music has a long history of transcending boundaries – cultural and otherwise – to unite people, while also helping to overcome hardships on an individual or group level. As the Queen of Jazz Ella Fitzgerald astutely said, “Music is the universal language... it brings people closer together.” Both food and music can evoke strong feelings of happiness, nostalgia and appreciation, which are often enhanced when shared.

Finally, we thought of how cuisine and music are both sources of great pride in our region. The two are firm cultural fixtures across the Middle East, and enjoy a long and rich history. Ancient Arabic music has been known to exist since the 5th century in the form of oral poetry accompanied by a drum or oud, a pear-shaped stringed instrument. Similarly, the earliest recorded recipes originated in the Middle East, specifically Mesopotamia. Sure, regional cuisine may have developed somewhat further than broths and stews in the last 4,000 years, but plenty of the main ingredients and cooking styles used in Arabic cuisine do have their roots in earlier times. This is much the same with instruments, musical traditions and styles of expression in the Arab world.

It uplifts us to play, as we often do, some of our grandmother Basima’s favourite tunes while cooking her glorious dishes. These are typically the legends, such as Fairuz, the musical icon of Lebanon; the late Egyptian greats Umm Kalthoum and Abdalhalim Hafiz; and France’s national chanteuse, Edith Piaf. And when we do, we feel more than ever how much food and music can bring us closer together, even to those that have left us physically, but not spiritually, long ago.

Abdalhalim Hafez playing the oud

A stencil of Umm Kalthoum

Edith Piaf

Fairuz