Flavours of Jerusalem: Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi's new recipes
Though they grew up on culturally opposed sides of the same city, Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi share a passion for the myriad flavours of Jerusalem – the subject of their new book.
The street food in Jerusalem inspired Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi's new book Photo: YOTAM OTTOLENGHI AND SAMI TAMIMI 2012
One of our favourite recipes, a simple cous cous with tomato and onion, is
based on a dish that Sami’s mum, Na’ama, used to cook for him when he was a
child in Muslim east Jerusalem. At around the same time, in the Jewish west
of the city Yotam’s father, Michael, used to make a very similar dish. Being
Italian, Michael made his dish with small pasta balls called ptitim.
We both grew up in the city, Sami in the Muslim east and Yotam in the Jewish
west, but never knew each other. We lived there as children in the 1970s and
1980s and then left in the 1990s, first to Tel Aviv and then to London. Only
there did we meet and discover our parallel histories; we became close
friends and then business partners, alongside others, in Ottolenghi.
Although we often spoke about Jerusalem, we never focused much on the city’s
food. But recently we have begun to reminisce over forgotten treats and old
food haunts. Hummus has become an obsession.
It is more than 20 years since we left the city. Yet we still think of
Jerusalem as our home because it defines us, whether we like it or not.
Everything we taste and everything we cook is filtered through the prism of
our childhood experiences: foods our mothers fed us, wild herbs picked on
school trips, days spent in markets, the smell of the dry soil on a summer’s
day, goats and sheep roaming the hills, fresh pittas with minced lamb,
parsley, chopped liver, black figs, smoky chops, syrupy cakes, crumbly
cookies. The list is endless.
We wanted to explore our culinary DNA, and the alphabet of the city that made
us the food creatures we are. We wanted to eat, cook and be inspired by the
richness of a city with 4,000 years of history, that has changed hands
endlessly and that now stands as the centre of three faiths and is occupied
by residents of such diversity. Is there even such a thing as Jerusalem
food? Consider this: there are Greek Orthodox monks in this city; Russian
Orthodox priests; Hasidic Jews originating from Poland; non-Orthodox Jews
from Tunisia, from Libya, from France or from Britain; there are Sephardic
Jews who have been here for generations; there are Palestinian Muslims from
the West Bank and many others from the city and well beyond; there are
secular Ashkenazi Jews from Romania, Germany and Lithuania, and more
recently arrived Sephardim from Morocco, Iraq, Iran and Turkey; there are
Christian Arabs and Armenian Orthodox; there are Yemeni Jews and Ethiopian
Jews but there are also Ethiopian Copts; there are Jews from Argentina and
others from southern India; there are Russian nuns looking after monasteries
and a whole neighbourhood of Jews from Bukhara (Uzbekistan).
But there are some typical elements that crop up One of our favourite recipes,
a simple cous cous with tomato and onion, is based on a dish that Sami’s
mum, Na’ama, used to cook for him when he was a child in Muslim east
Jerusalem. At around the same time, in the Jewish west of the city Yotam’s
father, Michael, used to make a very similar dish. Being Italian, Michael
made his dish with small pasta balls called ptitim.
Then there are looser affinities, those shared by a few cuisines but not all
of them – bulgar or semolina cases stuffed with meat (kubbeh),
burnt-aubergine salads, white bean soups, the combination of meat with dried
fruits. Eventually, these separate links become one clear and identifiable
local cuisine.
• Jerusalem by Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi (Random House) is available from Telegraph Books for £19.99 plus £1.35 p&p (0844-871 1515; books.telegraph.co.uk)
• Jerusalem by Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi (Random House) is available from Telegraph Books for £19.99 plus £1.35 p&p (0844-871 1515; books.telegraph.co.uk)
