"Everyone Has A Tool. Mine Is Food" - Fadi Kattan On The Power of Palestine's Diasporic Cuisine

There are over 1.5 million people in Gaza facing acute food insecurity. This harrowing statistic dwells on the mind of Franco-Palestinian chef Fadi Kattan every day.

"People in Gaza are in the worst conditions right now - a man-made starvation," he says.

Sitting at a table in his Notting Hill Palestinian restaurant, Akub, he recalls the heartbreak of seeing videos of flour reaching the famine-torn Gaza - the desperation on people's faces reaching out. "I don’t know how to relate to those images. But I am proud of cooking Palestinian bread despite the darkness trying to erase us. Being able to cook here is a privilege, it’s also an education.”

Everything in Akub is intentional. The walls of the restaurant are peppered with antique keys, symbolic of homes lost under Israeli occupation. Here, he contemplates what it means to cook Palestinian food at a time like this, in a setting so far from its origin.

“We are all Palestinian. Food is similar to dialects,” says Kattan. “I’ve been hearing people wonder how ‘Palestinian’ you are if you’re third generation. That’s ridiculous. The word ‘knafeh’, our national dessert, is pronounced differently depending where you are. Does it make it less Palestinian?”

Kattan is part of the vast Palestinian diaspora - an estimated six million people - many of whom cook and adapting their cuisine in homes across the world. This diaspora is larger than the population living in the West Bank and Gaza, which is estimated at under five million - the mass displacement is a result of over a century of upheaval, from the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the mass expulsions of 1948 to ongoing violence that continue to plight Palestinian autonomy.

“Food is one of the few things that is binding to national identity,” says Fadi. “People try to justify certain things within diasporic food and judge them - but there is no judgement, if you’re a Palestinian and you end up in Chile, where there’s no lamb, you’ll adapt lamb recipes to beef. That’s the normal evolution of things.”

Serving up classic Palestinian fare like sumac-drenched roast chicken Musakhan, spicy seafood stew Zibdiyyeh, mashed vegetable salad Mafghoussa, Akub explores national cuisine by adapting dishes with local British ingredients. The menu hammers home Fadi’s desire to educate on Palestinian food and culture, beyond skewed media headlines and dominant zionist discourse.

Fadi’s relationship to Palestinian food has always had a diasporic nature - his career as a chef started as a way to address uncertainties around what Palestinian food actually was. With the tragedies beset on Palestine, and the forced movement of its people, Fadi struggled to pinpoint clear narratives around his country’s cuisine.

"We should cook Palestinian food, regardless of whether you are Palestinian or not"

Palestinians inability to source their own local ingredients is felt not just for the diaspora forced away from their homeland, but also under zionism occupation. Israel’s military have deliberately destroyed Palestinian produce including olive trees and agricultural crops to ruin local livelihoods and force dwellers out, and have also targeted fishermen in Gaza to further exacerbate the feminine.

Fadi’s ability to cook Palestinian in London with locally sourced ingredients illustrates the adaptability of food in times of crises. Dry foods like olive oil and almonds are still sourced from Palestine - where possible - while local food fills in elsewhere.

“I don't adapt flavours, but I will adapt produce,” says Fadi, giving the example of Akub’s Zibdiyyeh, which traditionally uses prawns, whereas Akub’s version contains monkfish because of abundance and seasonality in British waters. Or Knafeh, a cheesy desert, which he uses British apricots, that lacks the resin flavour profile of the Palestinian variety. To create that flavour, he cooks the British fruit with Arabic gum. “It’s not changing [the recipe], but it’s in search of flavour from back home.”

These are all innovative ways to preserve the identity of Palestinian food - especially at a time that Israel has been claiming Palestinian food as their own. “Our food is being appropriated by Israeli chefs, celebrated without being recognised. But at the same time they deny we exist,” he says. “If you're claiming hummus or Maqluba is yours, then why are you erasing the people who make it?”

Our food is being appropriated by Israeli chefs, if you're claiming hummus or Maqluba is yours, then why are you erasing the people who make it?

He wants people to come to Akub and leave with questions, with insights, with greater understanding about Palestinian food - to keep the question of Palestinian identity present in the minds, hearts and tastebuds across the world - and to stand up for a nation that is facing systemic erasure.

For him, to cook Palestinian food is a powerful tool of recognition. “We need to remind the world we exist. I’m not a historian. I don’t preserve Palestinian food as food is alive. It shouldn’t be something we all weep about.”

“Each one of us has access to different tools. My tool is food. We should cook Palestinian food, regardless of whether you are Palestinian or not,” he says. “I think we should be louder than ever.”