PHILADELPHIA — For Anan Jardali Zahr, food isn’t just fuel for the body or delights for the taste buds. Food is a way for Zahr, a Palestinian American chef living in the suburbs of Philly, to hold on to her culture and traditions. And for her, food is political.
Zahr grew up on the Mediterranean coast, in the city of Acre in Israel — but when asked where she’s from, Zahr responds, “I was born in Akka, Palestine.” In 1965, when she was 11, Zahr and her family immigrated to Davis, California. But while Zahr was nearly 12,000 miles away from her hometown, Palestinian culture was intrinsic to her family and upbringing in the United States — and it’s what she revolves her life around as an adult.
After discovering her passion for cooking traditional Palestinian food, Zahr in 2000 opened a popular restaurant in downtown Wilmington, Delaware, called Olive Tree Mediterranean Gourmet, which operated for six years. She’s given demonstrations about Palestinian cuisine at local institutions, and has gained an online following from posting pictures and recipes of her cooking on Instagram. More recently, Zahr brought seeds for native vegetables back with her from Palestinian territories and donated them to the local farm-based seed company Truelove Seeds.
For Zahr, spreading knowledge about Palestinian cuisine is also a way to reclaim it from what many Palestinians view as cultural appropriation by Israel, which has occupied the Palestinian territory of the West Bank for more than 50 years.
“Israeli” is increasingly used as an adjective to describe traditional Palestinian and Middle Eastern dishes — such as when American author and TV cooking celebrity Ina Garten called a recipe involving hummus and fattoush an “Israeli vegetable salad,” or when catering company Lev NYC was criticized for serving Palestinian food without crediting it (the company later issued a lengthy apology).
The Arab world is made up of diverse communities across ethnicities and religions who have all contributed to the region’s cuisine, including Mizrahi (or Middle Eastern) Jews. It’s when that cuisine is broadly labeled as ‘Israeli’ that Zahr and other Palestinians feel it erases the food’s Arab origins.
The Inquirer spoke with Zahr about food, culture, and the political nature of Palestinian identity.
This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Q: When did you start to fall in love with cooking?
A: When I was younger, my mother would tell me to watch whatever’s in the oven and please take it out after a half hour. I would totally forget. But when I moved [to Philadelphia], because we have four kids, I had to cook. But then I started to really enjoy it. My mother, God bless her soul, was surprised I was a good cook, because I wasn’t interested in the kitchen at all when I was growing up.
Q: What was the first dish you made on your own?
A: Oh, I made so many mistakes. I love maqloubeh, which is a very Palestinian dish. When I started making maqloubeh (translating to “upside-down,” the dish consists of layers of rice, ground meat and eggplant), I would always use too much water, so it would come out really gooey. But I really perfected it now.
Q: When did you decide to open your own restaurant?
A: In 2000, because I really liked food, I started a restaurant in downtown Wilmington called the Olive Tree Mediterranean Gourmet. I got some very nice reviews in the News Journal, but I closed it after six years because it only depended on lunch business. But I loved it, and people really liked my food.
Q: There are other cuisines you could have learned to cook, but you decided to learn to make traditional Palestinian food. Why?
A: Because I am Palestinian. I have seen ... how [Israel] wants to not just take our land and destroy our villages, but they want to appropriate our culture. [Israel is] very good at food appropriation, which is taking something that doesn’t belong to them. Falafel actually originates from Egypt. And when did hummus become a national Israeli dish? It originates from the Arabic word for chickpeas. With my food, I want to inspire people to cook, but at the same time, when I post some things I will say, “This is not Israeli, it’s Palestinian.” I feel it’s my duty as a Palestinian. And food tells a lot about a people.
Q: Tell me about your Instagram page.
A: In 2015 or 2016, I started posting because I really like to take photos of my food. I didn’t always have recipes for each post, but if people got in touch with me I would send them one. It’s really more of an inspiration. I want to inspire people to cook Shami (Levantine) food, and I concentrated a lot on Palestinian food. Because each area is known for a special dish.
For example, in Palestine, we do musakhan. That’s very, very Palestinian. It’s really delicious and it’s prepared at the olive harvest season. And the concentration is to use really good olive oil, lots of onions, but the best extra virgin olive oil you can get. And another star of that dish is sumac.
Q: How did you connect with Truelove Seeds?
A: At the Free Library of Philadelphia, I gave a demonstration on how to make sumac. That’s where I met Owen Taylor (cofounder of Truelove Seeds). I got to know him a little bit more, and I brought him molokhia (Egyptian spinach) and kusa (squash) seeds from a seed place in Palestine.
Q: Why did you pick these seeds?
A: Kusa is very popular, especially in the summer, we make stuffed zucchini. And molokhia is so popular. It’s originally Egyptian, but we make [the stew] differently than the Egyptians — they make it more soupy.
My mom, she used to chop [the leaves] herself. She makes it very thick, and she doesn’t eat rice with it — we would just scoop them with pita bread, which is the Nazareth way. So they make it very thick, with most of the time chicken, because chicken broth is very flavorful. And of course, you sauté crushed garlic, and put cilantro on top if you want. Not everybody likes cilantro, but the Lebanese do. And my hometown Akka cooks like Lebanon a lot because we’re on the Mediterranean. And [for garnish], I will crush some garlic with lemon and put jalapeño pepper — that’s one. Another one, I cut up very finely chopped onions and put apple cider vinegar and salt and pepper. I like the lemon and garlic.
Q: What are the differences with growing these seeds in the Philadelphia climate?
A: Kusa grows very well here. The molokhia I believe is harder to grow, because of the rain. Usually molokhia is grown in the Arab world, the weather there is much drier than here. When we grow it here, it rains a lot — I never water my garden here, unless it’s August and it’s really dry. Because there’s so much water here, the taste of the molokhia is a little different, I think. The leaf is very lush, very green.
Q: What’s the importance of being able to grow your own plants, and why did you want to share that with other Philadelphians?
A: When I grow molokhia and kusa, especially molokhia, it really reminds me of home. Just having the food that you used to eat when you were young, and now you can grow it and cook it and eat it. It brings a longing for my home and my childhood. It makes me very happy and it means a lot to me that I’m sharing seeds from Palestine.
