The Gaza Kitchen

This award-winning cookbook shares with readers the little-known but distinctive cuisine of the Gaza region of Palestine, presenting 130 recipes collected by the authors from Gaza. Cooks will find great, kitchen-tested recipes for spicy stews, piquant dips, fragrantly flavored fish dishes, and honey-drenched desserts. They will also be entranced by the hundreds of beautiful photos of Gazan cooks, farmers, and fresh-produce merchants at work, and by the numerous in-kitchen interviews in which these women and men tell the stories of their food, their heritage, and their families. Anthony Bourdain, Claudia Roden, and Yotam Ottolenghi are among the many culinary figures who have embraced The Gaza Kitchen. This second edition features tantalizing new stories and recipes, a fresh new design in a beautiful hardbound volume, new photos, and an updated index.

Praise for the first edition: From adventurous chef, author, and TV host Anthony Bourdain: An important book on an egregiously under appreciated, under-reported area of gastronomy. This is old school in the best possible meaning of the term. From Mediterranean cuisine specialist, author, and cultural anthropologist Claudia Roden: Intriguing, homely and delicious, the recipes are familiar as broadly Middle Eastern but they are distinctively Palestinian and many also uniquely of Gaza—with more pronounced flavours, more herby, spicy, peppery, lemony, than those of their regional neighbours. We also get from this very special book a rare insight into the intimate everyday lives of engaging people who grow vegetables and herbs and raise pigeons and rabbits on their rooftops even as they lament their predicament. From author, Arabic food connoisseur, and journalist Annia Ciezadlo: The people in this moving, mouthwatering book transform humble ingredients like garlic and dill into recipes for survival. A wise, generous, and fearless exploration of how Gazans use food, even under incredible hardship, with strength and grace. From Palestinian historian, activist, and memoirist Ghada Karmi: A refreshing, new angle on Gaza's story. This splendid book will make your mouth water and show you the wonders of a rich, yet simple cuisine undimmed by years of a cruel and pointless siege. A tribute to its authors and a celebration of Gaza's brave and undaunted people. From former Slow Food USA president Josh Viertel: I have never seen a cookbook like The Gaza Kitchen. And that is a shame because this is exactly as a cookbook should be. It is a guide to knowing a place—its tastes, its ecology, its struggles and its spirit—through the food that people share there. It has changed how I cook, and it has filled me with respect for the ways in which food traditions create power and resilience in the face of adversity.

"This book becomes more essential with every passing day. Not just a superb cookbook, a collection of vital recipes from a delicious yet often overlooked cuisine, but an argument for understanding. A classic of world food." —Anthony Bourdain

"It is a delight to be returning to this book – a real classic – in its second edition. The recipes and stories are magically woven together, inspiring to read, to cook, and to eat." —Yotam Ottolenghi, chef and author, Jerusalem: A Cookbook

"Intriguing, homely and delicious, the recipes are familiar as broadly Middle Eastern but they are distinctively Palestinian and many also uniquely of Gaza . . . . We also get from this very special book a rare insight into the intimate everyday lives of engaging people." —Claudia Roden, author, Simple Mediterranean Cookery

"Part anthropology, part history, part politics, part biography, part geography, and always passionately intelligent, this is gastronomic writing at its finest." —Raj Patel, author, Stuffed and Starved:The Hidden Battle for the World Food System

"The Gaza Kitchen cookbook is a vital attempt to safeguard a rich culinary heritage that has existed in the Middle East for thousands of years." —Barbara Massaad, author and photographer, Man’oushé, Mouneh, Mezze, and Soup for Syria

Laila El-Haddad is an award-winning writer, public speaker, and social activist. She is the co-editor of Gaza Unsilenced (2015) and the author of Gaza Mom: Palestine, Politics, Parenting, and Everything In Between (2010). Born in Kuwait to Palestinian parents from Gaza, she currently lives in Maryland. Maggie Schmitt is a writer, researcher, translator, educator, and social activist. Schmitt works in various media—writing, production, photography, video—exploring the daily practices of ordinary people as a way of understanding political and social realities in the Mediterranean region. Nancy Harmon Jenkins is a food writer and journalist with a passionate interest in Mediterranean cultures and cuisines, sustainable agriculture, and farm-to-market connections.