New cookbook from British-Israeli chef Yotam Ottolenghi and British-Palestinian chef Sami Tamimi highlights the common experience between Palestinians and Israelis in modern Jerusalem, according to this article on NPR. Ottolenghi, the owner of a few restaurants in London, and Tamimi, a partner in the company and its head chef, have partnered to show that “if there’s one place in which Jerusalemites of all stripes still stand united, it’s in their love of food.”
I love the cross-cultural approach to the cookbook, and look forward to taking a closer look at it. I wonder if chefs still in Jerusalem – not expatriate chefs who have worked together for years in London – could undertake a project like this. Are there cooking communities in Jerusalem that include both Palestinian and Israeli cooks? Are there any cross-community restaurants? Would love to hear about such a thing, if it exists.
As an aside, the age-old hummus debate will always remind me of this classic scene from the Sacha Baron-Cohen movie, Brüno.
2 Responses
christina
“Are there cooking communities in Jerusalem that include both Palestinian and Israeli cooks? Are there any cross-community restaurants? ” you ask … great question!
My guess is not. One of the primay original reasons for keeping kosher (as I understand it from my Rabbi friend in Jerusalem), is to actually prevent cross-cultural intimacy. Business is okay, but close inter-racial, inter-cultural relationships? perhaps not so much – at least for the observant; and inter-marriage often requires conversion of the other.
As your ideas and blog say, which is what I love about it, one pretty much doesn’t get to know another very well if you can’t share the relaxed comfort of cooking together, and if you never break bread together except under strict conditions.
Stay separate and different in order to be ‘special’.
At the same time heal the world.
Isn’t this a conundrum?
Thanks for making me wonder …
Julia Fitz.
There was a great sushi restaurant in West Jerusalem I used to frequent in 2008-2009 that was run by an Israeli-Palestinian couple, but it shut down a few years ago. Not sure if the chefs were cross-community, but the owners were. (Great blog, btw!)