The deep red of ground sumac brings to mind the ripest strawberry, though the spice's flavor veers lemony and tart _ like a floral vinegar distilled into powder.
Its brightness defines sumaqqiyeh, a Palestinian stew with origins in Gaza City, where it's often served at Eid al-Fitr celebrations. Beef or lamb simmers with chickpeas and chard. In addition to sumac, a core Gazan trinity of garlic, green chile and dill blazes through the pot; they're added near the end of cooking so their flavors jump. Red tahini, a local specialty that gains its color by roasting the sesame seeds before grinding them, traditionally enriches the dish.
Palestinian chef Sami Tamimi uses oxtails for the lush version of sumaqqiyeh in his new cookbook "Falastin." The oxtails cook for four hours, until their meat all but flops off the bones. Cumin, cinnamon and baharat (a spice blend warmed by peppercorns, cloves, cardamom, allspice and nutmeg) infuse the tomato-laced broth. His recipe advises adding the greens at the finish line, heating them only until wilted, and suggests generous garnishes of sumac, chopped dill and sliced chiles.
"I had in my head that you should deliver something beautiful to people," Tamimi said recently by phone. "You spend all this time slow-cooking meat and it turns out beigey-brown, not a pretty dish." The herbs, for him, are vital cosmetology. "It's delicious, though, and it felt important to include it in the book."
Aesthetics matter to Tamimi. He's the executive chef and a partner behind the Ottolenghi brand in London; he's worked with Yotam Ottolenghi since the two opened the first Ottolenghi deli in 2002. Their bowls of pomegranate-jeweled salads and tiered towers of meringues and mini-cakes begat four delis and two full-service restaurants, Nopi and Rovi.
The brand's success also sired a string of cookbooks, beginning with vegetable-focused "Plenty" published in 2010. They helped ingratiate a light-touch use of ingredients common to many cuisines across the Middle East _ tahini, fava beans, sprinkles and swoops of crushed pistachios and yogurt as savory garnishes _ into the broader British and American repertoires. The za'atar and labneh croissants featured at Proof Bakery in Atwater Village? The lamb neck shawarma at Bavel in the Arts District? The Ottolenghi influence laid the tracks for their arrival in our food culture.
Ottolenghi and Tamimi wrote two books together: "Ottolenghi: The Cookbook" and "Jerusalem," the 2012 bestseller centered on the city where both chefs were born; Tamimi grew up in a Muslim family in East Jerusalem and Ottolenghi, who is Jewish, was raised in West Jerusalem.
Their book includes an often-quoted line of hope about the dish that has most come to symbolize Middle Eastern food for the world: "It takes a giant leap of faith, but we are happy to take it _ what have we got to lose? _ to imagine that hummus will eventually bring Jerusalemites together, if nothing else will."
In "Falastin," published this month in the United States and written with longtime Ottolenghi collaborator Tara Wigley, Tamimi steps forward to more forthrightly proclaim his Palestinian heritage. The book is an embrace of _ and reckoning with _ his homeland's complexities.
He'd tried sumaqqiyeh several times in his travels over the years, for example _ most recently at his sister's house in Jerusalem. Gaza City sits on the coast less than 50 miles southwest of her home, but Tamimi couldn't visit the dish's place of origin. "Falastin" lays out the reasons. Israel seized the Gaza Strip during the Six-Day War with Egypt in 1967; the Israeli government officially withdrew its presence from Gaza in 2005, but in escalated cross-border violence with Hamas, the Palestinian militant Islamist political organization, Israel and Egypt restricted movement at the Gazan borders with blockades. Neither people nor goods can enter or exit freely. "The Gaza Strip is one of the world's most densely populated places," states an essay in the book. About 25 miles long and 6 miles at its widest, with a population of nearly 2 million, "it's often described as the world's 'largest open-air prison.'"
The discussion focuses on fishing zone restrictions and an ineffective sewage system; both have contributed to the derailing of Gaza's once-thriving seafood industry.
Other discourses throughout the book address questions of land ownership, checkpoint realities, and the destruction of ancient West Bank olive groves to make way for Israeli settlements. Tamimi and Wigley also spotlight food champions like Vivien Sansour, a small-farm advocate and founder of the Palestinian Seed Library dedicated to heirloom vegetable preservation.
"Writing these stories _ indeed writing a Palestinian cookbook _ feels like a big responsibility," they say in the intro. "All the food and hospitality that a recipe book celebrates must be served, in the case of Palestine, against a very sobering backdrop."
The book is gorgeous, full of sumptuous-looking dishes photographed in the style that brings the Ottolenghi brand enduring success: a basket of chickpeas flecked with tiny Aleppo chile flakes, bowls of mint-strewn figs, pasta suspended in yogurt and scattered with breadcrumbs. There are images of robust markets and mountainside villages and boys joyfully jumping off a wall into the sea.
But some messes can't be disguised by food styling or ignored in favor of prettier views, and "Falastin" holds some space for hard realities.
