…aren’t written by theologians or missiologists. They’re cookbooks. Hospitality is a central part of our ministry
and hospitality almost always involves food.
In our five years of working with refugees, this has been an
adventure. It has actually changed the
way we eat, and thus it’s not an exaggeration to say the way we live (we now
have a diverse selection of dried beans and lentils, buy 15 kilo bags of rice,
and cook from scratch more often than not).
There are things in our pantry that I probably would not have recognised
in my early twenties. Noomi Basra? Ful medames?
I wouldn’t be without them now.
But back to the cookbooks. They’re wonderful tools when it comes to
hosting refugee friends from the Middle East.
Not so much for the reason of cooking food that they are more used
to. Rather, these books open a window
better understanding of their culture.
Two of my current favourites are considered ‘classics’ in
Middle Eastern cookery:
A New Book of
Middle Eastern Food by
Claudia Roden (1985) and
Middle Eastern
Cookery by Arto Der Haroutunian (1982).
Interestingly, both of these books are much more than a collection of
recipes. They describe culture and
customs associated with food and include many proverbs and folk stories. It’s clear that food and cooking in Middle
Eastern cultures is not a peripheral activity, but a central event around which
the rest of life revolves. As Roden
observes,
“The activities of cooking and eating reflect many subtly intricate
facets of the Middle Eastern character and way of life. They are intensely social activities, while
the dishes hold within them centuries of local culture art and tradition.”
Claudia Roden’s book is wonderful. The recipes we’ve tried thus far have been tasty,
but it’s Roden’s anthropological insights that make her book so illuminating. I would actually suggest the “Introduction to
the New Addition” as required reading for anybody working or hoping to work in
the Middle East. It’s one of
the most lucid,
respectful, and accurate descriptions of hospitality customs that I’ve come
across. She even manages to describe how
traditional customs can exist, even when seemingly “Western” norms have been
partially adopted,
“Actions and words reveal an attachment to ancient
tradition. At buffet dinner parties in
our house, for example, the guests stood far away from the table and had to be
urged and pressed to eat. Although the
mechanics of the European table, the knife and fork, and the table napkin, hand
been adopted, the hold Middle Eastern manners and rules of bienséance remained.”
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| Niamh also enjoys the cookbooks. |
Arto Der Haroutunian’s book is more broad, as far as the
food is concerned – he includes recipies stretching out to Azerbaijan. In stark contrast to Roden’s careful
observation, Haroutunian’s cultural commentary is more opinionated, humorous, politically
incorrect, as well as prone to hyperbole.
It is worth keeping in mind that he writes as an Armenian whose family
carried the memories of the 1915 Armenian Genocide. In writing about the importance of burghul
wheat for Armenians, he tells the following story, “For generations my people
hidden in mountain ravines and caves lived on tzavar [burghul] and a little
rice, when available, while the barbarian hordes [Seljuks and Mongols] ravaged
our biblical land, destroying churches, castles, burring villages, everything,
everything! that lay in their way. But
we survived thanks to the God given goodness of those tiny grains that
possessed the waters of the seas, the rays of the sun and all the goodness of
life. Blessed is the Lord, blessed be
the life giving grains of tzavar and rice.”
Interestingly, both of these books are written by people
who are from minorities in the Middle East.
Roden is a Sephardic Jew and Haroutunian an Armenian Christian. If Roden is correct when she says,
“Cooking
in the Middle East is deeply traditional and non-intellectual – an inherited
art… Its virtues are loyalty and respect for custom and tradition, reflected in
the unwavering attachment to the dishes of the past,” it probably took these people who are at once
cultural insiders and outsiders to decode this culinary tradition and make it
accessible to those of us who come new to age old culinary tradition.
Another cookbook worth a look is
Taking Tea in the
Medina by Julie Le Clerc. Her book is
possibly a bit more adapted to the Western palate than the two already
mentioned, but the recipes are simple, tasty, and the photography of the Middle
East is worth the cost alone. It’s a
beautiful book that would grace any coffee table; and ours, if we had one.
The great thing about sharing food is that it’s a chance
for us to learn from our refugee friends, who know so much more about cooking
rice than we do. When refugees are in
such a needy position, this turns the tables and they have the dignity of being
able to give, not only receive. We, in
turn, can impart our great knowledge of potatoes (why some mash and others end
up like a block of soap when boiled). It
seems like such a basic thing, but mutual sharing of hospitality – I believe –
is deeply spiritual.
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| How to cook giraffe... |
Christine Pohl who writes extensively on the theology of
hospitality describes it better than I could in the follow quotes from her book
Making Room: Recovering Hospitality as a Christian Tradition :
“Although we often think of hospitality as a tame and
pleasant practice, Christian hospitality has always had a subversive,
countercultural dimension… Especially when the larger society disregards or
dishonors certain persons, small acts of respect and welcome are potent far
beyond themselves. They point to a different system of valuing and an alternate
model of relationships…People view hospitality as quaint and tame partly
because they do not understand the power of recognition. When a person who is
not valued by society is received by a socially respected person or group as a
human being with dignity and worth, small transformations occur…Many persons
who are not valued by the larger community are essentially invisible to it.
When people are socially invisible, their needs and concerns are not
acknowledged and no one even notices the injustices they suffer. Hospitality
can begin a journey toward visibility and respect.”
“I believe that hospitality…means to give of
yourself…(in) other types of services you can give of your talents or…skills
or…resources…The tasks aren’t what hospitality is about, hospitality is giving
of yourself.; If hospitality involves sharing your life and sharing in the
lives of others, guests/strangers are not first defined by their need. Lives and resources are much more complexly
intertwined, and roles are much less predictable.”
Food for thought… (forgive the pun).
