Mixing Palates
Growing up, we didn’t have what you would call a strictly-defined idea of the parameters of our cuisine. That may sound strange; allow us to explain. We knew the names of the dishes we would eat at home, or at the dining tables of our grandparents and our extended families. And we certainly knew we loved them. But we only knew them by their individual names, and as ‘our’ food. We didn’t have mental labels for the background or country of origin of each dish. Like our ethnic background, our cuisine was mixed.
It was only as young adolescents that we became more acquainted with the different cultures that made up the delectable food we were feasting on, in tandem with our becoming more familiar with our own cultural background and ethnic heritage. Though we are three quarters Saudi, our late Palestinian grandmother, who had the greatest influence on our culinary experience both directly and through our mother, would cook us a range of dishes sprouting from the various influences on her own life. The dominant note in her cooking was undoubtedly the cuisine of her home country. This was manifest in her mastery of dishes such as musakhan: the national dish of Palestine, consisting of tangy spiced chicken served with caramelised onions, pine nuts and taboon, Palestinian flatbread. But having migrated to Lebanon in 1948 and then again to Saudi Arabia in the mid-1950s, Basima took on elements and staples of these cuisines in her stride, making them her own. Consequently, we grew up relishing not only the products of her own hereditary cuisine and those of the Levant more generally, but also her creations of Saudi gems like kabsa, a traditional spiced rice and chicken dish that is made in various ways across the Arabian Peninsula; as well as saleeg, a risotto-like affair originating in the Hejaz region of Saudi Arabia consisting of rice cooked in milk and meat broth, a truly scrumptious and nourishing meal (the name of which comes from the Arabic word ‘to boil’). And of course there were those indistinct but unforgettable dishes that fell in between, such as molokhiya, a yummy stew made with jute leaves that dates back to the time of the Pharaohs – the name means kingly – that is now eaten in countries all across the Middle East and North Africa.
When people ask us questions like which cuisine is our main one – a fairly standard query for a food business – we never have a straight answer. This is because we feel that the dishes that make up Basima’s Kitchen are integral and inseparable parts of us. Indeed, we don’t even distinguish between their provenance in our own heads, but rather see them as just our general cuisine. This cultural fusion is mirrored in other aspects of us, for example in the way we speak Arabic: primarily in the Saudi dialect, interspersed with those of Palestine and Lebanon (where our mother grew up).
Food can be such a profound way of connecting with people and cultures, whether your own or others’. Though we’ve not yet had the chance to visit our late grandmother’s homeland, whenever we make some taboon bread we feel an undeniable bond with that land and its people. We may not be visiting Saudi as much as we used to these days given the current situation, but whenever we share recipes, cooking techniques and of course food photos with loved ones there, the distance between us doesn’t feel all that wide.
When we think about it, we are incredibly happy to be able to call these culinary traditions our own, and infuse our cooking with this variety. What we unknowingly simply called 'our food' as doe-eyed and wide-mouthed youngsters in fact represented the marrying together of our ancestors' cultural traditions, culinary and otherwise, creating the very fusion that is the spice of life. What was once an ambiguous and purely appetite-driven awareness of our inherited cuisines as children has blossomed into a deep appreciation and pride, as we recognise how each dish is in and of itself a story, a history. All together they are a roadmap of our parents and grandparents' life journeys. And how grateful we are to be embedded in both these worlds.