June 13, 2024 • 44 mins
Welcome back to the Lecker Book Club. Every month I’ll pick a newly released food related book and talk to the author about the process of writing it.
This month: Namesake: Reflections on a Warrior Woman by N.S. Nuseibeh.
Namesake is a collection of essays exploring what it means to be a young, secular Muslim woman today, told through the lens of stories of the author's ancestor, Nusaybah, the only woman warrior to have fought alongside the Prophet.
N. S. Nuseibeh is a British Palestinian writer and researcher, born and raised in East Jerusalem. In Namesake, she weaves her own experiences of anxiety, of racism, of joy, of illness, of cooking in shared houses, of aubergines, with the myths and legends told of her ancestor. All of this makes this a book that I think should be required reading for everyone.
You can find a transcript for this episode at leckerpodcast.com.
Namesake is out now, published by Canongate. Find all of the Lecker Book Club reads on my Bookshop.org list.
This month, all the revenue I would normally get from Patreon, Apple Podcasts and Substack will be donated to mutual aid requests from Gazan people on Operation Olive Branch. If you would like to make your own donation, send me a screenshot and I'll comp you a subscription.
Music is by Blue Dot Sessions.
This month: Namesake: Reflections on a Warrior Woman by N.S. Nuseibeh.
Namesake is a collection of essays exploring what it means to be a young, secular Muslim woman today, told through the lens of stories of the author's ancestor, Nusaybah, the only woman warrior to have fought alongside the Prophet.
N. S. Nuseibeh is a British Palestinian writer and researcher, born and raised in East Jerusalem. In Namesake, she weaves her own experiences of anxiety, of racism, of joy, of illness, of cooking in shared houses, of aubergines, with the myths and legends told of her ancestor. All of this makes this a book that I think should be required reading for everyone.
You can find a transcript for this episode at leckerpodcast.com.
Namesake is out now, published by Canongate. Find all of the Lecker Book Club reads on my Bookshop.org list.
This month, all the revenue I would normally get from Patreon, Apple Podcasts and Substack will be donated to mutual aid requests from Gazan people on Operation Olive Branch. If you would like to make your own donation, send me a screenshot and I'll comp you a subscription.
Music is by Blue Dot Sessions.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Lucy (00:01):
This is Lecker I'm Lucy Dearlove.
This month on the Lecker BookClub, Namesake, Reflections
on a Warrior Woman, by N.
S.
Nuseibeh.
Namesake is a collection of essaysexploring what it means to be a young,
secular Muslim woman today, told throughthe lens of stories of the author's
(00:23):
ancestor, Nusaybah, the only woman warriorto have fought alongside the Prophet.
N.
S.
Nuseibeh is a British Palestinianwriter and researcher, born
and raised in East Jerusalem.
In Namesake, she weaves her ownexperiences of anxiety, of racism, of
joy, of illness, of cooking in sharedhouses, of aubergines, with the myths
(00:45):
and legends told of her ancestor.
And this makes this a book that I thinkshould be required reading for everyone.
N (00:52):
I write in the book that food is a way of making myself, and my Palestinian ness.
It's literally palatable topeople, and look, it's just a
book about delicious things.
Oh, surprise!
Twists!
There's some politics!
Lucy (01:07):
It was tricky to figure out exactly how to approach this interview,
if I'm being completely honest.
I really wanted to give N thespace to talk about the book in its
breadth and depth and beauty, becauseshe deserves to celebrate this.
It's an incredibly intelligently writtenand funny and stunning and triumphant
(01:27):
piece of writing, which lays out thecomplex and often painful reality of
existing as a Palestinian person in theworld within the author's own lifetime,
alongside the historical context.
I also really wanted to talk to her aboutPalestinian food because that's something
we've talked about together before, andher writing about it, her writing about
(01:50):
aubergines, about Jerusalem breakfasts.
They're stunning and mouthwatering, and they are in this
interview as well, so I was reallypleased To be able to do that too.
But before we start, I actually just wantto address that the author herself begins
namesake with a note that acknowledgesthat the book was written and finalized
(02:10):
before the events that unfolded duringand after the 7th of October, 2023.
I'm just going to read you aslightly shortened version of
that author's note to begin.
I have no idea how long thiswar will last, whether Gaza will
exist by the time of publication.
There is no point writing downthe number of children killed.
(02:31):
That number will have beendwarfed by the time you read this.
My intention with this book wasto bring certain narratives,
Muslim, Arab and Palestinian ones,into the cultural consciousness
of those outside the Arab world.
I wanted to write for others whoknow these same narratives well,
and also to show those who don'thow much we actually have in common.
(02:54):
Look at me, I write in these essays.
I'm not so different from you.
And wouldn't you want freedom?
It is clear to me now that this is futile.
Instead, reader, whoever you are,I simply hope that whenever you
open this book, you think of Gaza.
(03:17):
Anna and I spoke via video call, and tobegin I asked her to give an overview of
Namesake, for those who haven't read it.
N (03:25):
So, the book is called Namesake, and it's a collection of essays that uses
the figure of Nusaybah bint Ka'ab, whois this 7th century warrior woman in
Arabia who, Apparently is my ancestor.
Supposedly, they say.
I don't know if I believe it,but I use this figure and the
(03:47):
stories about her as a kind of wayto explore a range of different
subjects from anxiety to motherhoodto language to, of course, food.
Lucy (04:00):
I mean, I think this kind of, like, grey area of Nisei, but
as a figure sort of connected toyour family is really interesting.
Like, when I've talked to people aboutthe book, I've said like, oh yeah, you
know, she, she has this ancestor andthey're like, oh god, that's amazing.
So she's a real person and,and like, she's related to her.
I'm like, ah!
Because it's kind of notentirely clear, right?
And, but that's also, I think,often the case with these stories.
(04:24):
Like they're not always black and white.
N (04:25):
Yeah, I mean it's from so long ago, you know, like the 7th century is a long
time and we do have Interestingly, like,quite a lot of records that suggest that
she was a real person and that, like,our lineage does trace down from her.
I don't know.
I just, I, I just kindof don't believe it.
(04:46):
I don't know why I don't believe it.
There's, I just, I'm just like, nah.
She sounds too cool to be real.
Lucy (04:54):
I mean, that is true.
That is true.
So.
Is she a figure that you were just awareof from, basically from the beginning?
N (05:02):
From your beginning?
Yeah, yeah, so I always knew that shewas supposedly our ancestor, that she
was a warrior woman, that she likelost a hand or an arm during battle.
Importantly for me, uh, that Herdescendants were promised a place in
heaven, so, you know, I always felt reallychill about the afterlife as a result.
(05:25):
Right.
Yeah, so she was always kind of there, butI didn't really know that much about her.
I had to do lots of researchfor the book and kind of try and
find little snippets of stories.
There isn't really that much writtenabout her, but what I could find I
sort of tried to use to then makeup a kind of, you know, More a three
(05:46):
dimensional picture of a person.
Lucy (05:48):
And you write in the book that you felt like writing about Ms.
Saber would be less controversial.
When you're writing about Palestineand about Jerusalem specifically,
do you, did you still feel likethat was the case when you started
writing or after you finished writing?
Or was there a point where you realisedthat it wasn't less controversial?
N (06:09):
I don't know.
When I first started writing,Thought of the idea of somehow
kind of using this figure in.
In a book somehow, I guess itwas, it was about five, six years.
I mean, it was quite a while ago,and it was at a point in kind of the
British consciousness when I thinkpeople were starting to you know, feel
(06:33):
a bit more positively or a bit morecurious maybe about Islam in general.
Sort of there was a book calledIt's Not About the Burqa that
came out that did quite well.
Like people were starting, nonMuslims were starting to be like,
Oh yeah, maybe it's not that bad.
Let's, let's, let's make it cool.
Let's, let's, Let's, youknow, let's cut into it.
Let's look at this.
(06:54):
And also at a time when sort of lotsof Greek goddesses, Roman mythology was
being sort of reinterpreted and lookedat from like a feminist point of view.
So between those two things, Ithought, oh yeah, this, this warrior
woman, ancestor of mine will just.
I mean that, that, it seems likepeople might be interested in her,
(07:14):
but I guess as I wrote the book andas I did more research and as I found
that I couldn't really extricatethis character from questions about
Palestinian ness and Arab ness and Muslimfeminism, it sort of I ended up not
being able to avoid the controversial.
(07:37):
I mean, I wanted, I think I had aclear intention when I set out to
write the essays that I would sort oftalk about a Muslim Arab experience,
maybe a British experience, but Iwould avoid the subject of Palestine.
I didn't really want to write aboutJerusalem or about being Palestinian.
You know, I wanted it to be like lesspersonal, less revealing, less specific.
(08:00):
I didn't want to get Yeah, I didn't wantto get anybody's back up because I'm like
very deeply ingrained people pleaser.
So it's just like, you know, just,Oh, I'll just write about something
that's like nice and inoffensive.
But I just found that like I couldn't.
Lucy (08:19):
That's also a horrible way to bear that like you
feel like you have to do that.
N (08:23):
Yep.
Yep.
But I mean, as the last sixmonths have shown, being
Palestinian is not something that.
is considered vanilla in the world.
Like it's not an apolitical thing.
And I thought that I could, I thoughtthat I could kind of just put it to the
(08:46):
side and, you know, be a kind of moregeneral person and have more generalities
to connect with people over, but youknow, I, even in writing about food,
like I couldn't avoid talking about.
Jerusalem about being Palestinian.
Like it just, it kept coming back in.
(09:06):
Like I.
I found I just couldn't be honest.
Yeah, without talking about this,like, very fundamental aspect of
myself, which is that I am Palestinianand I was brought up in Jerusalem.
And that's where my family is.
And, you know, if you're talkingabout, like, ancestry and if you're
talking about all sorts of like allthe questions that I thought were more
(09:30):
general ended up being so general.
Stupidly specific.
Lucy (09:36):
Yes.
Yeah.
But I guess that that isreally interesting, isn't it?
Like what does it mean to writeabout ancestry without the present?
Like I can completely see howyou thought it was possible, but
also that it very firmly was not.
So yeah, that's kind of areally fascinating concern.
Um, well I should probably get intothe food because this is of course
a food podcast and you know, thereason why I wanted to talk to you
(09:58):
aside from the fact that it's a trulyamazing book is that food is so.
present.
It's so present.
Like when you very kindly sent me aproof copy of the book and you wrote a
little note in it saying, Oh, the firstchapter is about aubergines and it is.
So can you tell us why youstarted with aubergines?
N (10:15):
Yeah, I guess.
So I write in the book that food is a wayof making myself and my Palestinian ness.
literally palatable to people, and um,I think that's probably why I wanted
to start the book with that essay.
I felt like I could draw readersin, like, look, it's just a
book about delicious things.
(10:35):
Oh, surprise, twist,there's some politics.
Yeah.
And I guess I also, I foundit a particularly interesting
story about my, my ancestor.
The, the one that, that Aubergine'schapter draws on is about this
Nusayba woman making a meal forthe prophet and then fasting.
(10:56):
And it just seemed like a reallyinteresting way into looking at her as a
more sort of three dimensional character.
Lucy (11:04):
And so, can you, and please correct my pronunciation on this dish, but can
you tell me about Betinjan Batiri, andwhy this dish, which maybe you can also
explain to us what it is, why does it feellike such an impossible one to recreate?
N (11:18):
Yeah, oh my god, Betinjan Batiri is It's like my favorite dish ever.
It's a beautiful blend of meat andspices and tomatoes and this like
perfect small deliciously sweet typeof aubergine that comes from this
village in the West Bank called Batyr.
And I guess it feels like home.
(11:38):
feels in some ways, at least impossibleto recreate because I don't have access
to these special aubergines unless I'min Palestine, but also to local sort
of Palestinian produce more widely.
You know,
Lucy (11:52):
that's a really interesting thing, isn't it?
With food culture, like there's so muchof it, you know, it's, it's great that
people are sort of interested in, youknow, In, in recipes from elsewhere and
cooking them, but actually like so muchof it is about place and provenance
that it's kind of hard to do that and Ithink it's a, it was a really important
point that I think maybe just hadn'toccurred to me about many things, many
recipes that I might read that actuallyI can't eat the version that this person
(12:15):
is talking about and that's important.
N (12:17):
Yeah, it's so interesting because, you know, like, I feel like we
realized the connection between.
Like the specific soil and it's producewhen it comes to things like wine, like,
you know, that certain grapes will Right!
Lucy (12:30):
That's so true!
The idea of Exactly!
And
N (12:34):
we're, and we're so, you know, like people who are wealthy, not me,
will pay a premium for like wine.
Grapes, wine that come from particulargrapes in particular areas and that,
you know, that because they cantaste the earth through the wine
or whatever, that's what they say.
And it's absolutely the same thing whenit comes to other food, I think, you
know, things like aubergines will alsohave the terroir in their, I don't know,
(12:59):
in their essence and, and the kind ofthe, the way they're grown and they're,
The, like, organisms that they are.
Yeah, it's so strange that we don't thinkabout the connection between, like, food
and place or produce and soil in thatway when it comes to, um, When it comes
to sort of more general foods, I guesswe've just gotten so used to things being
(13:21):
globalized and everything being likeavailable in plastic wrapped packets
and Sainsbury's from all over the world.
Lucy (13:28):
Yeah.
I think that it made me think about howkind of anonymized varieties of fruit and
vegetables that are like, you know, we.
I would go to the supermarket or thegrocer or whatever and I would buy
an aubergine, but I don't know whatthe name of that variety is, you
know, I might be able to get like asmaller one from a different shop, but
whatever, but yeah, it, the specificityis so often missing and it's, what
(13:49):
is so important because it's niceto build a relationship with people.
Yeah, that actually leads meon to something else I wanted
to, to ask, to ask you about.
So in the book you talk about food as away to hold on to and pass on culture.
And for example, you talk aboutthe dish again, I'm so sorry, my
Arabic is not, is not, is not there.
(14:09):
The dish Mujadara is both somethinghistoric, so you describe it as a
13th century recipe and it's also verycontemporary, something your sister in
law might cook on weeknights becauseit's cheap, it's easy, it's delicious.
Yeah.
It's delicious.
I found this really interestingand really moving, actually.
And I think this kind of connectsto what we were just talking about.
As an English person whose food culturedoes not feel historic, whose food culture
(14:33):
feels very borrowed, stolen, you know,from the colonial past that we have.
Yeah, I have sort of ended upmaybe feeling slightly rootless
when it comes to my food culture.
And I guess I'm really interested in yourexperience as a Palestinian person who
has spent a long time in the UK studying.
I, did you feel, well, I think I knowthe answer, this is quite a leading
(14:54):
question because I think I know theanswer to this because you do touch on it
in the book, but did you feel a tensionin those two very different experiences
and cultures when you came to the UK?
N (15:04):
Yeah, I mean, I do think the food and eating culture is really important.
different outside the Arab world.
I mean, I grew up with everyone wantingto feed me constantly with food being
this sort of casual, but communal thing.
And it's, it is much moreindividualized in the UK.
I mean, you have to havelike dinner parties.
(15:24):
If you want a communal eating experience,people don't just share food as a given.
So I.
I guess I, over the years, I've learnedto kind of individualize my cooking a bit.
Yeah, I remember listening actually toan episode of Lecker a while ago where
you interviewed uh, Fliss Freeborn abouther student cookbook and her saying
everyone would go around to hers allthe time for meals because she'd cook,
(15:47):
but in my experience it was actuallyquite hard people getting people to
want to sit and share food with me.
Like, maybe it reflects badlyon my university cooking.
That seems so
Lucy (15:55):
wild.
No, but I, I, yeah, I know what you mean.
I think there's sometimes like this weirdover politeness where, I mean, you, you
kind of tell a story in the book whereyou do make dinner for your flatmates and
they ask you how much they owe you, which,I mean, like, I can completely understand
how that happened because I guess I havebeen in situations where somebody does
(16:16):
ask people to chip in, but when you layit out in that way, I mean, that's like,
So alien to what your experience was assomebody that just shares food as this
kind of like cultural communal experience.
Yeah.
That must've been so such a wild moment.
I
N (16:29):
mean, and it, and I think people, especially at university, I mean, once
you get older, there's more of a, maybemore of a relaxation around food, but
in a kind of university environment,which is the one that I've been in for
most of the time that I've been in theUK, there's like, you know, People want
to, if they're socializing, they wantto play drinking games and drunkenly
(16:51):
get like chips and gravy or whatever.
They don't really, you know, theydon't really do the kind of excessive
food that's part of that kind of foodculture and it's partly, you know.
Lucy (17:07):
They do other things to excess, but not that.
Exactly, and you
N (17:10):
know, maybe it's partly a budget thing, but also people
will spend that money on alcohol.
So I don't think it is necessarily,it's just You know, it's kind
of, what do you see as a kind ofsocial lubricant or as a good time?
And I don't feel like the peoplethat I've interacted with in Britain
see food as a social lubricant.
They see alcohol as a social lubricant.
(17:32):
It completely changes the sort ofdynamics around eating together.
Lucy (17:36):
That's such a like fascinating comparison, isn't it?
Because I think it also, it makes so muchsense when you consider like the, like the
sort of cultural conversation in Englandabout like elitism, you know, like if you,
if you buy a coffee or, I mean, I feellike this is the example I always come
back to because I find it so ridiculous.
But like, if you buy a coffee, you'relike a liberal metropolitan elite.
(17:56):
And it's like this idea that people can'tjust have access to or desire nice food.
Yeah.
of any form, because it's, it's,it's seen as being out of touch or
like having ideas above your station.
Yeah, it is, it is so fascinating.
Well, just to, just to ask you one finalthing about the Overdunes chapter, at
the end of it, you imagine yourselfsharing food and cooking for Zeba.
(18:18):
Tell us about the dish that youtried to recreate for her and
the kind of process of that.
Cause I think it sounds likethere's not a lot of information
about it and you kind of.
Yeah, so
N (18:29):
it's called Thurid or Tharid.
And honestly, yeah, it was a verygross dish that I made solely
for the purposes of research.
Uh, there are modern versionsof it that I'm sure are amazing.
It's quite popular in Saudi Arabiaas a dish, but I wanted to stick
to the recipe that I found that wassupposedly appropriate for the time.
(18:49):
So, you know, like.
680 AD, a long time ago, and itinvolved, it involved unseasoned
meat boiled in water with likewhole onions and chickpeas.
And stale flatbread sprinkled with sugar.
And then, and then that whole like mixturewas poured on top of the flatbread.
(19:11):
It was really unappealing.
It was, I mean, maybe, maybe itwas a particularly bad recipe.
Maybe I did something wrong.
I did not enjoy it.
I did, I could not imagineanybody, even Naseiba, enjoying it.
Like, it was It was verygritty and tasteless.
(19:33):
Not what you want, not what you want.
Lucy (19:36):
Because, yeah, my next question that I'd prepared for this was, do you think
you were being too hard on yourself in theway that she might have reacted to this?
Okay, that's Because I kind of, I'mlistening to the ingredients, I'm like,
you could put some salt in there andit would probably be fine, but no.
N (19:51):
I think, I think it was partly the sugar on the flatbread.
The flatbread was stale and I used, I usednon, like, you know, like the Sainsbury's.
Naan that you can get in like the packet.
So I just left that outfor a couple of days.
Which is,
Lucy (20:07):
that's pretty stale anyway.
N (20:08):
It's pretty stale anyway and it left it out for longer so
it was really very tasteless.
And then the sugar that I put ontop just didn't really dissolve
when I added the stew element.
So there was sort of this uh,surprising and unpleasant, yeah, kind
of texture to the, again, quite stale.
(20:31):
And unappealing bread.
So, no, I, I am glad that I livein a world where that's not my
everyday food, I have to say.
One of the things about looking backat history and then looking now.
Yeah.
Exactly.
Lucy (20:47):
Yeah.
Did it, did it make you feelcloser to her as a figure?
N (20:51):
I think it did, actually, because I really struggle.
I mean, ironically, for someone who choseto this as a topic to write about, but
I really struggle to picture history atall, like I find it really, I always get
like hung up on like small details like,but how, how are they using the loo?
Like what, what does that look like?
Oh my God, it's thebiggest question, right?
Lucy (21:13):
Yeah.
Yeah,
N (21:13):
exactly.
So I find it really, really hard toimagine what it, what it would have
been like for anybody in the past.
And I guess, yeah, like cooking and tryingto use the, this recipe that supposedly,
you know, was from that time did makeme feel a little bit more connected
than I might have done otherwise.
It's sort of, I could imagine beingsomeone who was eating this and
(21:37):
thinking, Huh, this is my, yeah, thisis what it's supposed to taste like.
And this is what my food daily looks like.
And it kind of gave me aninsight that way, I suppose.
Lucy (21:50):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
You talk a lot in the book aboutposition, the idea of positionality.
And, I, you know, I sort of understoodthat to mean, like, the context in which
the writer is expressing themselves andhow it's important to understand that
to sort of take what we need from that.
I'm interested in your viewson that around food or cooking.
(22:13):
Like, do you think positionality isimportant when we talk about those things?
N (22:16):
Yeah, absolutely.
I think so because in food, as inother culture, there's the risk of
appropriation, of, you know, using andbenefiting from the culture of more.
So I do think it's important to besort of mindful of that if we can be.
But I also, I really liked what, um,Ania said about this, Ania von Bremsen
(22:37):
on one of your earlier episodes aboutcutting the bullshit and just saying,
this is racial injustice, you know,rather than talking about appropriation.
Like, I just thought that was so true,you know, like in the case of Palestinian
food, for instance, there's definitelysomething that sort of is painful for me
when foreigners referred to a cucumberand tomato salad as an Israeli salad
(22:58):
rather than a Palestinian salad, because.
To me, it's obvious thatthat's a Palestinian salad
that has been appropriated
Lucy (23:05):
by
N (23:05):
Israeli culture.
Or, you know.
Something like Sabra Hummus, whichis, you know, sold all over the UK.
You see it on shelves
Lucy (23:12):
in supermarkets,
N (23:14):
owned by a huge Israeli company.
And again, it's like, they're profitingfrom a Palestinian or from an Arab dish,
from an Arab way of making hummus, youknow, and that's what appropriation is.
But then again, as Anya said, it'sjust, it boils down to racial injustice.
So that's the important part.
The appropriation part is like, Yes,that's an offshoot of it, but the
(23:36):
racial injustice is at the core.
At the same time, I don'twant to come across as like,
weirdly like, purist about food.
Like, I think there's something reallybeautiful that happens with food.
That kind of, I don't know, migratoryalchemy that happens when, you know,
people take local ingredients, um,to make versions of foreign dishes
(23:57):
or the other way around, you know,like, um, I learned a lot and I've
incorporated a lot into my own cookingfrom like various flatmates that I've
had who've been, whether British,but like also Italian or Pakistani.
And, you know, they've shown medifferent ways of like, of thinking
about food and ingredients.
And then I've taken those ways of thinkingabout food ingredients and applied them
(24:20):
to Palestinian dishes that I know well.
So there's also something, you know,lovely that happens with that mixing.
It's just the appropriation isthe profiting off of it, which
I think is, you know, the racialinjustice part, as Anya said.
Lucy (24:34):
Yeah, I think that's, that's such a really beautiful way of looking at it.
I love that migratory alchemy.
That's such a wonderful way of Likeexpressing that kind of like sharing of
cultural ideas and practices and, andyeah, because that's, that's it, isn't it?
It's like, it is about, yeah,profiting of one person over
another rather than, yeah, sharing.
Yeah, this possibly links into this,um, you describe yourself in the book
(24:56):
as feeling too British in Jerusalemand too Palestinian in England.
Do you think food has helped younavigate that kind of duality?
N (25:04):
I think it contributes to feeling the duality rather than managing it or
navigating it like I think of, you know,whenever I'm ill, for instance, and I'm
in the UK, all I want are, you know, myhome foods that are good for illness, that
Palestinians think are good for illness,like toasted pita bread and labaneh
is like what you have when you're ill.
(25:25):
And so, That's what I think of as wantingwhen I'm ill or sort of different teas,
like Maramilla, which is made fromthis like wild sage that crows in the
hills and in the Palestinian hills.
And you can't really get that.
Like I tried making sage tea withjust normal sage in, in the UK.
And it's just not the same.
It doesn't have the magical properties.
(25:46):
Um, yes, exactly.
And so, especially in thosemoments where I like, I'm
craving something that I know is.
what my body would want forits nourishment or for its
recovery for health or something.
And, you know, my, like my Britishfriends or whatever will look
(26:08):
at me and be like, why that?
Why not a Lemsip?
Like have some PeptoBismol for God's sake.
Yeah, exactly.
Everyone has their things, butit, it makes me feel more foreign
and more Palestinian when in thosemoments, like the things that I know.
The other people, if they were Palestinianwould also suggest they're inexplicable
(26:32):
for my, for my British friends.
And, and likewise, I mean, youknow, it goes to the way as well.
Like when I'm in Jerusalem and I'msuddenly got like massive craving for
like raspberries or something thatyou can't really get in Jerusalem.
And, and again, it's sort ofdifficult to explain why, why you
miss something or why something feels.
(26:55):
It's a specific desire, youknow, I want raspberries, not the
local clementines or whatever.
Why, why do I want, you know, but it'ssomething to do with, I think, the fact
that they evoke a particular place.
It's not just that you want the flavor,it's that they, you know, Transport you
Lucy (27:13):
and it's, it's often I think about not being able to have it
at that particular moment, right?
Like it's so easy when you're inthe place where it's available to
like state that craving immediately.
And we're sort of quite used toa world where that's possible
within certain contexts.
So then, yeah, like I can imaginethat is extremely amplified
when, and also by the kind ofalienation experienced by people not
(27:35):
understanding why this is so necessary.
Yeah,
N (27:38):
exactly.
Exactly.
Lucy (27:40):
You mentioned this already in the context of Nusaybah preparing a
meal for the Prophet Muhammad and herfasting, but it felt important for me
to ask you about the presence of fastingin the book because obviously that is
something that is so, so related to food.
That sounds like an incrediblybasic way to put it.
But yeah, you talk about yourgrandmother fasting, it comes up
(28:03):
in the stories about Nusaybah.
Yeah, how did it feel when you read aboutNusaybah fasting and feeding others?
Like, because you talk in the book aboutnot necessarily really fasting yourself.
Like, that not being part ofyour identity as a Muslim woman.
Like, how did it feel tokind of read that about her?
N (28:23):
I mean, I have fasted.
I did fast sometimes as a kid andoccasionally for a few days as an adult.
But, I guess In looking at that particularstory of Naseba and the Prophet and the
sort of making food, but then feedinghim, standing aside, fasting herself,
(28:44):
I guess what intrigued me about itis that it felt, it felt incongruous
somehow, it felt uncomfortable somehow,that this like no fucks given warrior
would be doing something that's soassociated with like the domestic,
so associated with the feminine.
And it started sort of getting me thinkingabout the self negation aspects of
(29:08):
fasting and the fact that sort of eatingand appetite have kind of been eyed
with suspicion when it comes to women,you know, women are meant to be like
small and not take up too much space.
It's sort of transgressive almost for awoman to have a large and showy appetite.
And.
(29:28):
You know, and, and, like, eventhat is only really acceptable if
the woman herself is very small.
Like, how dare you be a largewoman who has a showy appetite?
You know, like, you're not meantto take up that kind of space.
In thinking about, like, fasting andfeeding, and food more generally, it
(29:50):
just, it, that particular story kindof, highlighted a lot of complexities
around it and a lot of contradictions,you know, that, that like feeding can
be such a wonderful, like it was, wewere talking about before this sort
of warmth and community and love and,you know, all sorts of good things.
And then also an, like incredibly genderedthing where, you know, It's very domestic
(30:15):
and if you're a woman who's feeding thenyou know you're very normative somehow
and if you're also feeding and not eatingyourself then that makes you kind of
doubly normative because then you'redoing the domestic labor but you're not
partaking in it and you're, you know, Um,you know, and you're keeping small, you're
taking up even less space by not eating.
(30:37):
That story and the kind of fasting elementof it kind of opened up all of that to me.
And um, that's what I triedto explore in the essay.
Lucy (30:45):
Yeah.
Cause I mean, I should reiterate thatthis, this book is, has some wonderful
sort of food stories in it, but itis about so much to do with food.
Um, and you know, another example is,uh, where you talk about the presence of
the veil, you know, the, um, Muslim womenwho wear the burqa Um, like that idea of
that as privacy was so fascinating to me,like the idea of that being about like
(31:09):
control, like controlling your environmentas a woman, because the external side
of your environment, you know, theexternal side of your environment.
Is so sort of uncontrollable, likepeople coming and going all the time.
Like, yeah, I guess the, thesort of a connection to that.
It's hard to, again, maybe it'scoming back to you making this
dish that you found disgusting.
Like, it's just really hard tounderstand the context of history
(31:29):
and we should be really careful aboutapplying our own understanding to it.
Right.
And I think there's so many ideas aroundfood of like subservience and like.
And I think, you know, in, in the UK,like I just think there's so much racism
against Arab women in that context.
Like there's just so many assumptionsmade of Arab women and Muslim women,
(31:51):
you know, specifically that it'sreally, really important to understand.
Yeah.
Or not understand because you mightnot, but appreciate that there might
be differences from your own experienceis I guess what I'm trying to get at in
N (32:03):
that.
Yeah, definitely.
Definitely.
And as you say, there's, it's so.
Interesting looking at the past andcomparing it to the present because
we're so likely to kind of superimposeour own understandings and our own
you know, the weight of 1200 yearsof patriarchy onto the cooking of the
dish when actually, you know, it'snot, not necessarily the way that dish
(32:26):
would have been cooked at the time.
Lucy (32:28):
Yeah.
N (32:29):
But it, it does also allow us to, I think, look at our norms more expansively.
If we don't just look at themwith sort of the gaze of right
now, if we look at things inrelation to history and look at it.
look at things from the point of viewof long ago, as well as with our sort
(32:49):
of present day knowledge of all ofthe woke things that we all know.
Lucy (32:54):
Right.
There's this amazing detail around thefood that you eat with your family,
like particularly when you're at homein Jerusalem, you know, it was just
really, you talk about, um, is it kayaks?
The bread that you're talkingabout, is that how you pronounce it?
Cake and hummus and falafeland you and your mother boil
white cheese and you make salad.
(33:15):
Could you just tell us a bit aboutthe food that you've grown up with
and still kind of eat in Jerusalem andwhat you and your family eat there?
I'd just really love toknow more about that.
N (33:25):
I can absolutely talk about that.
It's my favorite thing to talk about.
Right.
Breakfasts are a big dealin Palestinian culture.
It's a very, and it's a veryJerusalem thing, specifically
Jerusalem thing to have kaj.
Lucy (33:38):
Okay.
N (33:39):
Because yeah, like Palestinians from outside of Jerusalem will
travel to Jerusalem specifically forthe kaj, which as I said, is this
sort of oblong sesame coated bread.
And it's like crusty on the outsideand fluffy and light and slightly soft.
It's sweet on the inside.
It's very nice.
And there are stalls that sellit all over East Jerusalem.
And usually they'll throw in alittle, like, baggie of za'atar rolled
(34:02):
up in a little bit of newspaper.
Like, very, very excessively saltyza'atar, but it's perfect for Like
just putting on this slightly sweetbread because it cuts it really nicely.
And then, yeah, obviously we'llhave that with like, as you said,
hummus, which everyone in the UKnow knows what hummus is, so I
Lucy (34:20):
don't need to explain it.
And I imagine the versionsthat we have access to here are
maybe not quite what you're used
N (34:26):
to.
Yeah, no, I mean, the lovely thingis that people will just make it
like there are certain restaurants,or they're not Properly restaurants.
They're like specifically forhummus and falafel and food.
They're sort of specificallybreakfast places, I guess.
And they'll have like these hugevats of hummus and ful, which
(34:48):
is, um, similar to hummus in thatit's a type of dip, but it's made
from beans rather than chickpeas.
And they'll like scoop these beans.
These things out and put them on theselike little plastic plates, but then
they'll put like fresh chickpeas or freshbeans on top fresh coriander Um olive oil.
(35:09):
I mean they'll likethey'll they'll make it.
It feels like a fresh tasty I don't know.
It doesn't feel pre packaged andsanitized, if that makes sense.
Lucy (35:20):
Yes, that does make sense.
N (35:21):
If you get it from a supermarket.
Yeah, but that's all breakfast.
And there are other meals that aresort of equally mouth watering.
Like one of my favorites is waratoeli,which is stuffed vine leaves.
And it's different from like theGreek kind that you often find in
Tesco or Sainsbury's, which are sortof, They're like cold and lemony.
(35:41):
Our vine leaves are cooked,are hot, served hot.
And they're cooked with like meats,lamb usually, and tomato and garlic.
And they're served, yeah,they're served hot with like
stuffed courgettes as well often.
Absolutely mouth watering.
So good.
Um, yeah, we love stuffingvegetables with rice and meat.
(36:02):
Like that's, there's a lot of that.
What's not to love,
Lucy (36:05):
yeah.
Haha.
Haha.
You mention in the book several of yousort of use examples and you quote from a
lot of people so as well as this like sortof amazing historical research you have,
there's so many contemporary sources inthe book, it feels so present, you know,
and I just wondered if you would be ableto mention a few of your favourites that
you talk about, you mentioned Spanish.
(36:26):
specifically some Palestinianwriters who write about food.
And I'd just love to hearthose from you and just share
a bit about why you love them.
N (36:33):
Yeah, sure.
I would highly recommend that everyonego out and get Sami Tamimi's Palestine
cookbook because it's beautiful.
It's beautiful.
It's full of great recipes.
He's got even like lots of breadrecipes that are really amazing,
including a recipe for cake.
I tried, I did try to make it myselfin London and it did not turn out very
well, but I don't blame the recipe.
(36:54):
That's again, my own cooking, clearly.
I, uh, also would recommend Laila alHaddad, uh, she wrote a book called
The Gaza Kitchen, which is also reallybeautiful and she herself is Palestinian
who grew up in the diaspora, but she didspend time in Gaza around 2010, I think.
(37:16):
And she collected stories andrecipes from the locals there.
And it's like one of thefew sort of cookbooks about
Gazan food that's in English.
So I really recommend.
Yeah, I really recommendhaving a look at that.
Gaza.
I've never had the opportunity to go toGaza, but I have family members there.
And my, um, and my immediate familyhas also been there and talked
(37:39):
about how good Gazan food is.
They have like a big, like, Focus on fishbecause they're obviously on the coast.
So they have like some reallynice dishes and who else?
Oh yeah.
And I would highly recommend alsofollowing Hamada Shakura, who is a
Palestinian food blogger, who's currentlyin Dafa and he's incredible, you know,
(38:01):
like most people in Gaza, he's like,he's lost an inconceivable amount of,
um, Well, just everything, you know,his home and livelihood and family and
displaced several times, et cetera.
But he, um, went viral a littlewhile ago for the meals that he was
making from aid packages in Gaza.
And he just, he just makesthese incredible, like little
(38:22):
videos on TikTok and stuff.
And, um, yeah, he, again, just abeautiful, uh, beautiful insight
into what's going on in Gaza,but through a foodie perspective.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And he's pretty funny as well.
I mean, amazingly, they're, they'resee, like, they keep, people keep
their humor and their warmth and theirhumanity, despite being dehumanized.
(38:46):
And yeah, there's some really, he, likeone of his most recent videos, he makes
like a giant tub of, um, rice puddingor like the Arabic version Bahari.
And it's just, it's, Like, there'ssomething beautiful about seeing that.
I
Lucy (39:02):
don't know
N (39:02):
what it is, but really appealing.
Yeah, wonderful.
Exactly.
Yeah, I would highlyrecommend those people.
And, um, in terms of sort of lessfood focused, but other people.
People that incorporatefood into their writing.
Hala Alyan is a beautifulnovelist who also has very rich
(39:23):
descriptions of food in her writing.
And again, as someone interestingto follow and to read.
Lucy (39:31):
Yeah, great.
And, and I guess just to kind of, tofinish up, you know, we've obviously, um,
like, it's, it's impossible not to touchon what's happening in Gaza at the moment.
And I guess I just wanted to ask you,what does it mean to look at figures like
Nusayba in this particular environment?
Like, has the resonance towards,you know, the resonance of her
(39:53):
changed view or become moresignificant or anything like that?
Like, yeah, what does it mean to kindof celebrate this incredibly historic
culture at a time when so much ofa, you know, of a culture is being
destroyed, I guess is my question.
N (40:08):
Yeah, it's a, it's a good question.
Um, I guess one honest answer wouldbe that I really haven't thought
about her very much because yeah.
Reality of living through this, um, thisgenocide has been sort of overwhelming and
it's kind of put things like Historicalfigures kind of on the back burner.
(40:31):
But also, I guess it's made me think,
I mean, the, the kind of experiencesthat people in Gaza in the West Bank
all over Palestinians are going throughPalestinian women, they are just They're
surviving so much, they're incrediblypowerful and strong, and, you know, so, so
(40:55):
much more powerful and strong than I am.
And, you know, here I am writingabout this, like, historical figure
who was brave a few times in battle,but she wasn't actually subject to,
you know, aerial bombardment 24 7.
She didn't have her.
Entire home, you know, destroyedin a matter of minutes.
(41:20):
I think actually in a lot ofways, the people that are living
today are much braver and muchmore interesting than she was.
Um, I mean, like I feel a bit silly reallyfor having drawn her for inspiration, but,
um, but also maybe, I don't know, it's,it's nice, or I think maybe it's important
(41:45):
at a time when So much of Palestinianculture and as well as Palestinian life
is being demonized or erased or, um,
or yeah, vilified in someway and, um, and denied.
(42:06):
I think it's.
It's good, nice to have stories aboutthe past that we hold on to, you know,
I think that that is important in thesame way that it's important to hold
on to, um, you know, our food, ourdifferent types of food, our dishes.
Yeah, actually I wanted to say there'sthis really interesting project
(42:29):
based partly out of this village thatI mentioned earlier, Batir, where
they make the beautiful aubergines.
I don't know if you've come across it.
It's called the PalestinianHeritage Seed Library.
Have you heard of it?
I have heard of it.
Oh, it's fantastic.
It's really cool.
It was founded by a Palestinian womancalled Vivian Sansour, and what it does
(42:49):
is work on preserving and promotingheritage and threatened seed varieties
and traditional Palestinian farmingpractices and the stories and identities
that are sort of associated with them.
So like, Sun Tzu finds like keyseed varieties like these things
like I remember I saw pictures ofthese incredible carrots that were
(43:10):
huge, like giant carrots and foodcrops that were sort of threatened
with extinction and she works toactively preserve their bioculture
and recuperate the local landscape.
Yeah, this project was started inlike 2016 but But I mean, it's, it's
the same, it's sort of a similaridea, like I'm trying to do it with
a story, but she's doing it much morepractically and importantly with food.
(43:31):
And you know, it's again, this idea oflike the past and this, our heritage and
land and stories, all of it being kindof connected and important to preserve.
Lecker
Lucy (43:50):
is hosted and produced by me, Lucy Dearlove.
Thanks to my guest N.
S.
Nozaba.
Namesake is out now.
Published by Canongate.
I was really honoured to speak to Endfor this episode, and while I understand
what she means about practical actsbeing a priority at the moment, it's
just also so important to preservePalestinian stories and culture, and she
(44:15):
does this so beautifully in Namesake.
This month I'll be donating the moneyI usually get from Patreon and Substack
to requests for aid listed on theOperation Olive Branch spreadsheet.
If you'd like to sign up as a paidsubscriber this month, all of that,
aside from the fees the platformstake, will go to mutual aid.
If you'd like to make your own donationafter listening to this episode,
(44:37):
if you send me a screenshot, I'llcomp you a subscription to Substack.
Music is by Blue Dot Sessions.
Thanks so much for listening.
I'll be back soon.
This is Lecker I'm Lucy Dearlove.
This month on the Lecker BookClub, Namesake, Reflections
on a Warrior Woman, by N.
S.
Nuseibeh.
Namesake is a collection of essaysexploring what it means to be a young,
secular Muslim woman today, told throughthe lens of stories of the author's
(00:23):
ancestor, Nusaybah, the only woman warriorto have fought alongside the Prophet.
N.
S.
Nuseibeh is a British Palestinianwriter and researcher, born
and raised in East Jerusalem.
In Namesake, she weaves her ownexperiences of anxiety, of racism, of
joy, of illness, of cooking in sharedhouses, of aubergines, with the myths
(00:45):
and legends told of her ancestor.
And this makes this a book that I thinkshould be required reading for everyone.
N (00:52):
I write in the book that food is a way of making myself, and my Palestinian ness.
It's literally palatable topeople, and look, it's just a
book about delicious things.
Oh, surprise!
Twists!
There's some politics!
Lucy (01:07):
It was tricky to figure out exactly how to approach this interview,
if I'm being completely honest.
I really wanted to give N thespace to talk about the book in its
breadth and depth and beauty, becauseshe deserves to celebrate this.
It's an incredibly intelligently writtenand funny and stunning and triumphant
(01:27):
piece of writing, which lays out thecomplex and often painful reality of
existing as a Palestinian person in theworld within the author's own lifetime,
alongside the historical context.
I also really wanted to talk to her aboutPalestinian food because that's something
we've talked about together before, andher writing about it, her writing about
(01:50):
aubergines, about Jerusalem breakfasts.
They're stunning and mouthwatering, and they are in this
interview as well, so I was reallypleased To be able to do that too.
But before we start, I actually just wantto address that the author herself begins
namesake with a note that acknowledgesthat the book was written and finalized
(02:10):
before the events that unfolded duringand after the 7th of October, 2023.
I'm just going to read you aslightly shortened version of
that author's note to begin.
I have no idea how long thiswar will last, whether Gaza will
exist by the time of publication.
There is no point writing downthe number of children killed.
(02:31):
That number will have beendwarfed by the time you read this.
My intention with this book wasto bring certain narratives,
Muslim, Arab and Palestinian ones,into the cultural consciousness
of those outside the Arab world.
I wanted to write for others whoknow these same narratives well,
and also to show those who don'thow much we actually have in common.
(02:54):
Look at me, I write in these essays.
I'm not so different from you.
And wouldn't you want freedom?
It is clear to me now that this is futile.
Instead, reader, whoever you are,I simply hope that whenever you
open this book, you think of Gaza.
(03:17):
Anna and I spoke via video call, and tobegin I asked her to give an overview of
Namesake, for those who haven't read it.
N (03:25):
So, the book is called Namesake, and it's a collection of essays that uses
the figure of Nusaybah bint Ka'ab, whois this 7th century warrior woman in
Arabia who, Apparently is my ancestor.
Supposedly, they say.
I don't know if I believe it,but I use this figure and the
(03:47):
stories about her as a kind of wayto explore a range of different
subjects from anxiety to motherhoodto language to, of course, food.
Lucy (04:00):
I mean, I think this kind of, like, grey area of Nisei, but
as a figure sort of connected toyour family is really interesting.
Like, when I've talked to people aboutthe book, I've said like, oh yeah, you
know, she, she has this ancestor andthey're like, oh god, that's amazing.
So she's a real person and,and like, she's related to her.
I'm like, ah!
Because it's kind of notentirely clear, right?
And, but that's also, I think,often the case with these stories.
(04:24):
Like they're not always black and white.
N (04:25):
Yeah, I mean it's from so long ago, you know, like the 7th century is a long
time and we do have Interestingly, like,quite a lot of records that suggest that
she was a real person and that, like,our lineage does trace down from her.
I don't know.
I just, I, I just kindof don't believe it.
(04:46):
I don't know why I don't believe it.
There's, I just, I'm just like, nah.
She sounds too cool to be real.
Lucy (04:54):
I mean, that is true.
That is true.
So.
Is she a figure that you were just awareof from, basically from the beginning?
N (05:02):
From your beginning?
Yeah, yeah, so I always knew that shewas supposedly our ancestor, that she
was a warrior woman, that she likelost a hand or an arm during battle.
Importantly for me, uh, that Herdescendants were promised a place in
heaven, so, you know, I always felt reallychill about the afterlife as a result.
(05:25):
Right.
Yeah, so she was always kind of there, butI didn't really know that much about her.
I had to do lots of researchfor the book and kind of try and
find little snippets of stories.
There isn't really that much writtenabout her, but what I could find I
sort of tried to use to then makeup a kind of, you know, More a three
(05:46):
dimensional picture of a person.
Lucy (05:48):
And you write in the book that you felt like writing about Ms.
Saber would be less controversial.
When you're writing about Palestineand about Jerusalem specifically,
do you, did you still feel likethat was the case when you started
writing or after you finished writing?
Or was there a point where you realisedthat it wasn't less controversial?
N (06:09):
I don't know.
When I first started writing,Thought of the idea of somehow
kind of using this figure in.
In a book somehow, I guess itwas, it was about five, six years.
I mean, it was quite a while ago,and it was at a point in kind of the
British consciousness when I thinkpeople were starting to you know, feel
(06:33):
a bit more positively or a bit morecurious maybe about Islam in general.
Sort of there was a book calledIt's Not About the Burqa that
came out that did quite well.
Like people were starting, nonMuslims were starting to be like,
Oh yeah, maybe it's not that bad.
Let's, let's, let's make it cool.
Let's, let's, Let's, youknow, let's cut into it.
Let's look at this.
(06:54):
And also at a time when sort of lotsof Greek goddesses, Roman mythology was
being sort of reinterpreted and lookedat from like a feminist point of view.
So between those two things, Ithought, oh yeah, this, this warrior
woman, ancestor of mine will just.
I mean that, that, it seems likepeople might be interested in her,
(07:14):
but I guess as I wrote the book andas I did more research and as I found
that I couldn't really extricatethis character from questions about
Palestinian ness and Arab ness and Muslimfeminism, it sort of I ended up not
being able to avoid the controversial.
(07:37):
I mean, I wanted, I think I had aclear intention when I set out to
write the essays that I would sort oftalk about a Muslim Arab experience,
maybe a British experience, but Iwould avoid the subject of Palestine.
I didn't really want to write aboutJerusalem or about being Palestinian.
You know, I wanted it to be like lesspersonal, less revealing, less specific.
(08:00):
I didn't want to get Yeah, I didn't wantto get anybody's back up because I'm like
very deeply ingrained people pleaser.
So it's just like, you know, just,Oh, I'll just write about something
that's like nice and inoffensive.
But I just found that like I couldn't.
Lucy (08:19):
That's also a horrible way to bear that like you
feel like you have to do that.
N (08:23):
Yep.
Yep.
But I mean, as the last sixmonths have shown, being
Palestinian is not something that.
is considered vanilla in the world.
Like it's not an apolitical thing.
And I thought that I could, I thoughtthat I could kind of just put it to the
(08:46):
side and, you know, be a kind of moregeneral person and have more generalities
to connect with people over, but youknow, I, even in writing about food,
like I couldn't avoid talking about.
Jerusalem about being Palestinian.
Like it just, it kept coming back in.
(09:06):
Like I.
I found I just couldn't be honest.
Yeah, without talking about this,like, very fundamental aspect of
myself, which is that I am Palestinianand I was brought up in Jerusalem.
And that's where my family is.
And, you know, if you're talkingabout, like, ancestry and if you're
talking about all sorts of like allthe questions that I thought were more
(09:30):
general ended up being so general.
Stupidly specific.
Lucy (09:36):
Yes.
Yeah.
But I guess that that isreally interesting, isn't it?
Like what does it mean to writeabout ancestry without the present?
Like I can completely see howyou thought it was possible, but
also that it very firmly was not.
So yeah, that's kind of areally fascinating concern.
Um, well I should probably get intothe food because this is of course
a food podcast and you know, thereason why I wanted to talk to you
(09:58):
aside from the fact that it's a trulyamazing book is that food is so.
present.
It's so present.
Like when you very kindly sent me aproof copy of the book and you wrote a
little note in it saying, Oh, the firstchapter is about aubergines and it is.
So can you tell us why youstarted with aubergines?
N (10:15):
Yeah, I guess.
So I write in the book that food is a wayof making myself and my Palestinian ness.
literally palatable to people, and um,I think that's probably why I wanted
to start the book with that essay.
I felt like I could draw readersin, like, look, it's just a
book about delicious things.
(10:35):
Oh, surprise, twist,there's some politics.
Yeah.
And I guess I also, I foundit a particularly interesting
story about my, my ancestor.
The, the one that, that Aubergine'schapter draws on is about this
Nusayba woman making a meal forthe prophet and then fasting.
(10:56):
And it just seemed like a reallyinteresting way into looking at her as a
more sort of three dimensional character.
Lucy (11:04):
And so, can you, and please correct my pronunciation on this dish, but can
you tell me about Betinjan Batiri, andwhy this dish, which maybe you can also
explain to us what it is, why does it feellike such an impossible one to recreate?
N (11:18):
Yeah, oh my god, Betinjan Batiri is It's like my favorite dish ever.
It's a beautiful blend of meat andspices and tomatoes and this like
perfect small deliciously sweet typeof aubergine that comes from this
village in the West Bank called Batyr.
And I guess it feels like home.
(11:38):
feels in some ways, at least impossibleto recreate because I don't have access
to these special aubergines unless I'min Palestine, but also to local sort
of Palestinian produce more widely.
You know,
Lucy (11:52):
that's a really interesting thing, isn't it?
With food culture, like there's so muchof it, you know, it's, it's great that
people are sort of interested in, youknow, In, in recipes from elsewhere and
cooking them, but actually like so muchof it is about place and provenance
that it's kind of hard to do that and Ithink it's a, it was a really important
point that I think maybe just hadn'toccurred to me about many things, many
recipes that I might read that actuallyI can't eat the version that this person
(12:15):
is talking about and that's important.
N (12:17):
Yeah, it's so interesting because, you know, like, I feel like we
realized the connection between.
Like the specific soil and it's producewhen it comes to things like wine, like,
you know, that certain grapes will Right!
Lucy (12:30):
That's so true!
The idea of Exactly!
And
N (12:34):
we're, and we're so, you know, like people who are wealthy, not me,
will pay a premium for like wine.
Grapes, wine that come from particulargrapes in particular areas and that,
you know, that because they cantaste the earth through the wine
or whatever, that's what they say.
And it's absolutely the same thing whenit comes to other food, I think, you
know, things like aubergines will alsohave the terroir in their, I don't know,
(12:59):
in their essence and, and the kind ofthe, the way they're grown and they're,
The, like, organisms that they are.
Yeah, it's so strange that we don't thinkabout the connection between, like, food
and place or produce and soil in thatway when it comes to, um, When it comes
to sort of more general foods, I guesswe've just gotten so used to things being
(13:21):
globalized and everything being likeavailable in plastic wrapped packets
and Sainsbury's from all over the world.
Lucy (13:28):
Yeah.
I think that it made me think about howkind of anonymized varieties of fruit and
vegetables that are like, you know, we.
I would go to the supermarket or thegrocer or whatever and I would buy
an aubergine, but I don't know whatthe name of that variety is, you
know, I might be able to get like asmaller one from a different shop, but
whatever, but yeah, it, the specificityis so often missing and it's, what
(13:49):
is so important because it's niceto build a relationship with people.
Yeah, that actually leads meon to something else I wanted
to, to ask, to ask you about.
So in the book you talk about food as away to hold on to and pass on culture.
And for example, you talk aboutthe dish again, I'm so sorry, my
Arabic is not, is not, is not there.
(14:09):
The dish Mujadara is both somethinghistoric, so you describe it as a
13th century recipe and it's also verycontemporary, something your sister in
law might cook on weeknights becauseit's cheap, it's easy, it's delicious.
Yeah.
It's delicious.
I found this really interestingand really moving, actually.
And I think this kind of connectsto what we were just talking about.
As an English person whose food culturedoes not feel historic, whose food culture
(14:33):
feels very borrowed, stolen, you know,from the colonial past that we have.
Yeah, I have sort of ended upmaybe feeling slightly rootless
when it comes to my food culture.
And I guess I'm really interested in yourexperience as a Palestinian person who
has spent a long time in the UK studying.
I, did you feel, well, I think I knowthe answer, this is quite a leading
(14:54):
question because I think I know theanswer to this because you do touch on it
in the book, but did you feel a tensionin those two very different experiences
and cultures when you came to the UK?
N (15:04):
Yeah, I mean, I do think the food and eating culture is really important.
different outside the Arab world.
I mean, I grew up with everyone wantingto feed me constantly with food being
this sort of casual, but communal thing.
And it's, it is much moreindividualized in the UK.
I mean, you have to havelike dinner parties.
(15:24):
If you want a communal eating experience,people don't just share food as a given.
So I.
I guess I, over the years, I've learnedto kind of individualize my cooking a bit.
Yeah, I remember listening actually toan episode of Lecker a while ago where
you interviewed uh, Fliss Freeborn abouther student cookbook and her saying
everyone would go around to hers allthe time for meals because she'd cook,
(15:47):
but in my experience it was actuallyquite hard people getting people to
want to sit and share food with me.
Like, maybe it reflects badlyon my university cooking.
That seems so
Lucy (15:55):
wild.
No, but I, I, yeah, I know what you mean.
I think there's sometimes like this weirdover politeness where, I mean, you, you
kind of tell a story in the book whereyou do make dinner for your flatmates and
they ask you how much they owe you, which,I mean, like, I can completely understand
how that happened because I guess I havebeen in situations where somebody does
(16:16):
ask people to chip in, but when you layit out in that way, I mean, that's like,
So alien to what your experience was assomebody that just shares food as this
kind of like cultural communal experience.
Yeah.
That must've been so such a wild moment.
I
N (16:29):
mean, and it, and I think people, especially at university, I mean, once
you get older, there's more of a, maybemore of a relaxation around food, but
in a kind of university environment,which is the one that I've been in for
most of the time that I've been in theUK, there's like, you know, People want
to, if they're socializing, they wantto play drinking games and drunkenly
(16:51):
get like chips and gravy or whatever.
They don't really, you know, theydon't really do the kind of excessive
food that's part of that kind of foodculture and it's partly, you know.
Lucy (17:07):
They do other things to excess, but not that.
Exactly, and you
N (17:10):
know, maybe it's partly a budget thing, but also people
will spend that money on alcohol.
So I don't think it is necessarily,it's just You know, it's kind
of, what do you see as a kind ofsocial lubricant or as a good time?
And I don't feel like the peoplethat I've interacted with in Britain
see food as a social lubricant.
They see alcohol as a social lubricant.
(17:32):
It completely changes the sort ofdynamics around eating together.
Lucy (17:36):
That's such a like fascinating comparison, isn't it?
Because I think it also, it makes so muchsense when you consider like the, like the
sort of cultural conversation in Englandabout like elitism, you know, like if you,
if you buy a coffee or, I mean, I feellike this is the example I always come
back to because I find it so ridiculous.
But like, if you buy a coffee, you'relike a liberal metropolitan elite.
(17:56):
And it's like this idea that people can'tjust have access to or desire nice food.
Yeah.
of any form, because it's, it's,it's seen as being out of touch or
like having ideas above your station.
Yeah, it is, it is so fascinating.
Well, just to, just to ask you one finalthing about the Overdunes chapter, at
the end of it, you imagine yourselfsharing food and cooking for Zeba.
(18:18):
Tell us about the dish that youtried to recreate for her and
the kind of process of that.
Cause I think it sounds likethere's not a lot of information
about it and you kind of.
Yeah, so
N (18:29):
it's called Thurid or Tharid.
And honestly, yeah, it was a verygross dish that I made solely
for the purposes of research.
Uh, there are modern versionsof it that I'm sure are amazing.
It's quite popular in Saudi Arabiaas a dish, but I wanted to stick
to the recipe that I found that wassupposedly appropriate for the time.
(18:49):
So, you know, like.
680 AD, a long time ago, and itinvolved, it involved unseasoned
meat boiled in water with likewhole onions and chickpeas.
And stale flatbread sprinkled with sugar.
And then, and then that whole like mixturewas poured on top of the flatbread.
(19:11):
It was really unappealing.
It was, I mean, maybe, maybe itwas a particularly bad recipe.
Maybe I did something wrong.
I did not enjoy it.
I did, I could not imagineanybody, even Naseiba, enjoying it.
Like, it was It was verygritty and tasteless.
(19:33):
Not what you want, not what you want.
Lucy (19:36):
Because, yeah, my next question that I'd prepared for this was, do you think
you were being too hard on yourself in theway that she might have reacted to this?
Okay, that's Because I kind of, I'mlistening to the ingredients, I'm like,
you could put some salt in there andit would probably be fine, but no.
N (19:51):
I think, I think it was partly the sugar on the flatbread.
The flatbread was stale and I used, I usednon, like, you know, like the Sainsbury's.
Naan that you can get in like the packet.
So I just left that outfor a couple of days.
Which is,
Lucy (20:07):
that's pretty stale anyway.
N (20:08):
It's pretty stale anyway and it left it out for longer so
it was really very tasteless.
And then the sugar that I put ontop just didn't really dissolve
when I added the stew element.
So there was sort of this uh,surprising and unpleasant, yeah, kind
of texture to the, again, quite stale.
(20:31):
And unappealing bread.
So, no, I, I am glad that I livein a world where that's not my
everyday food, I have to say.
One of the things about looking backat history and then looking now.
Yeah.
Exactly.
Lucy (20:47):
Yeah.
Did it, did it make you feelcloser to her as a figure?
N (20:51):
I think it did, actually, because I really struggle.
I mean, ironically, for someone who choseto this as a topic to write about, but
I really struggle to picture history atall, like I find it really, I always get
like hung up on like small details like,but how, how are they using the loo?
Like what, what does that look like?
Oh my God, it's thebiggest question, right?
Lucy (21:13):
Yeah.
Yeah,
N (21:13):
exactly.
So I find it really, really hard toimagine what it, what it would have
been like for anybody in the past.
And I guess, yeah, like cooking and tryingto use the, this recipe that supposedly,
you know, was from that time did makeme feel a little bit more connected
than I might have done otherwise.
It's sort of, I could imagine beingsomeone who was eating this and
(21:37):
thinking, Huh, this is my, yeah, thisis what it's supposed to taste like.
And this is what my food daily looks like.
And it kind of gave me aninsight that way, I suppose.
Lucy (21:50):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
You talk a lot in the book aboutposition, the idea of positionality.
And, I, you know, I sort of understoodthat to mean, like, the context in which
the writer is expressing themselves andhow it's important to understand that
to sort of take what we need from that.
I'm interested in your viewson that around food or cooking.
(22:13):
Like, do you think positionality isimportant when we talk about those things?
N (22:16):
Yeah, absolutely.
I think so because in food, as inother culture, there's the risk of
appropriation, of, you know, using andbenefiting from the culture of more.
So I do think it's important to besort of mindful of that if we can be.
But I also, I really liked what, um,Ania said about this, Ania von Bremsen
(22:37):
on one of your earlier episodes aboutcutting the bullshit and just saying,
this is racial injustice, you know,rather than talking about appropriation.
Like, I just thought that was so true,you know, like in the case of Palestinian
food, for instance, there's definitelysomething that sort of is painful for me
when foreigners referred to a cucumberand tomato salad as an Israeli salad
(22:58):
rather than a Palestinian salad, because.
To me, it's obvious thatthat's a Palestinian salad
that has been appropriated
Lucy (23:05):
by
N (23:05):
Israeli culture.
Or, you know.
Something like Sabra Hummus, whichis, you know, sold all over the UK.
You see it on shelves
Lucy (23:12):
in supermarkets,
N (23:14):
owned by a huge Israeli company.
And again, it's like, they're profitingfrom a Palestinian or from an Arab dish,
from an Arab way of making hummus, youknow, and that's what appropriation is.
But then again, as Anya said, it'sjust, it boils down to racial injustice.
So that's the important part.
The appropriation part is like, Yes,that's an offshoot of it, but the
(23:36):
racial injustice is at the core.
At the same time, I don'twant to come across as like,
weirdly like, purist about food.
Like, I think there's something reallybeautiful that happens with food.
That kind of, I don't know, migratoryalchemy that happens when, you know,
people take local ingredients, um,to make versions of foreign dishes
(23:57):
or the other way around, you know,like, um, I learned a lot and I've
incorporated a lot into my own cookingfrom like various flatmates that I've
had who've been, whether British,but like also Italian or Pakistani.
And, you know, they've shown medifferent ways of like, of thinking
about food and ingredients.
And then I've taken those ways of thinkingabout food ingredients and applied them
(24:20):
to Palestinian dishes that I know well.
So there's also something, you know,lovely that happens with that mixing.
It's just the appropriation isthe profiting off of it, which
I think is, you know, the racialinjustice part, as Anya said.
Lucy (24:34):
Yeah, I think that's, that's such a really beautiful way of looking at it.
I love that migratory alchemy.
That's such a wonderful way of Likeexpressing that kind of like sharing of
cultural ideas and practices and, andyeah, because that's, that's it, isn't it?
It's like, it is about, yeah,profiting of one person over
another rather than, yeah, sharing.
Yeah, this possibly links into this,um, you describe yourself in the book
(24:56):
as feeling too British in Jerusalemand too Palestinian in England.
Do you think food has helped younavigate that kind of duality?
N (25:04):
I think it contributes to feeling the duality rather than managing it or
navigating it like I think of, you know,whenever I'm ill, for instance, and I'm
in the UK, all I want are, you know, myhome foods that are good for illness, that
Palestinians think are good for illness,like toasted pita bread and labaneh
is like what you have when you're ill.
(25:25):
And so, That's what I think of as wantingwhen I'm ill or sort of different teas,
like Maramilla, which is made fromthis like wild sage that crows in the
hills and in the Palestinian hills.
And you can't really get that.
Like I tried making sage tea withjust normal sage in, in the UK.
And it's just not the same.
It doesn't have the magical properties.
(25:46):
Um, yes, exactly.
And so, especially in thosemoments where I like, I'm
craving something that I know is.
what my body would want forits nourishment or for its
recovery for health or something.
And, you know, my, like my Britishfriends or whatever will look
(26:08):
at me and be like, why that?
Why not a Lemsip?
Like have some PeptoBismol for God's sake.
Yeah, exactly.
Everyone has their things, butit, it makes me feel more foreign
and more Palestinian when in thosemoments, like the things that I know.
The other people, if they were Palestinianwould also suggest they're inexplicable
(26:32):
for my, for my British friends.
And, and likewise, I mean, youknow, it goes to the way as well.
Like when I'm in Jerusalem and I'msuddenly got like massive craving for
like raspberries or something thatyou can't really get in Jerusalem.
And, and again, it's sort ofdifficult to explain why, why you
miss something or why something feels.
(26:55):
It's a specific desire, youknow, I want raspberries, not the
local clementines or whatever.
Why, why do I want, you know, but it'ssomething to do with, I think, the fact
that they evoke a particular place.
It's not just that you want the flavor,it's that they, you know, Transport you
Lucy (27:13):
and it's, it's often I think about not being able to have it
at that particular moment, right?
Like it's so easy when you're inthe place where it's available to
like state that craving immediately.
And we're sort of quite used toa world where that's possible
within certain contexts.
So then, yeah, like I can imaginethat is extremely amplified
when, and also by the kind ofalienation experienced by people not
(27:35):
understanding why this is so necessary.
Yeah,
N (27:38):
exactly.
Exactly.
Lucy (27:40):
You mentioned this already in the context of Nusaybah preparing a
meal for the Prophet Muhammad and herfasting, but it felt important for me
to ask you about the presence of fastingin the book because obviously that is
something that is so, so related to food.
That sounds like an incrediblybasic way to put it.
But yeah, you talk about yourgrandmother fasting, it comes up
(28:03):
in the stories about Nusaybah.
Yeah, how did it feel when you read aboutNusaybah fasting and feeding others?
Like, because you talk in the book aboutnot necessarily really fasting yourself.
Like, that not being part ofyour identity as a Muslim woman.
Like, how did it feel tokind of read that about her?
N (28:23):
I mean, I have fasted.
I did fast sometimes as a kid andoccasionally for a few days as an adult.
But, I guess In looking at that particularstory of Naseba and the Prophet and the
sort of making food, but then feedinghim, standing aside, fasting herself,
(28:44):
I guess what intrigued me about itis that it felt, it felt incongruous
somehow, it felt uncomfortable somehow,that this like no fucks given warrior
would be doing something that's soassociated with like the domestic,
so associated with the feminine.
And it started sort of getting me thinkingabout the self negation aspects of
(29:08):
fasting and the fact that sort of eatingand appetite have kind of been eyed
with suspicion when it comes to women,you know, women are meant to be like
small and not take up too much space.
It's sort of transgressive almost for awoman to have a large and showy appetite.
And.
(29:28):
You know, and, and, like, eventhat is only really acceptable if
the woman herself is very small.
Like, how dare you be a largewoman who has a showy appetite?
You know, like, you're not meantto take up that kind of space.
In thinking about, like, fasting andfeeding, and food more generally, it
(29:50):
just, it, that particular story kindof, highlighted a lot of complexities
around it and a lot of contradictions,you know, that, that like feeding can
be such a wonderful, like it was, wewere talking about before this sort
of warmth and community and love and,you know, all sorts of good things.
And then also an, like incredibly genderedthing where, you know, It's very domestic
(30:15):
and if you're a woman who's feeding thenyou know you're very normative somehow
and if you're also feeding and not eatingyourself then that makes you kind of
doubly normative because then you'redoing the domestic labor but you're not
partaking in it and you're, you know, Um,you know, and you're keeping small, you're
taking up even less space by not eating.
(30:37):
That story and the kind of fasting elementof it kind of opened up all of that to me.
And um, that's what I triedto explore in the essay.
Lucy (30:45):
Yeah.
Cause I mean, I should reiterate thatthis, this book is, has some wonderful
sort of food stories in it, but itis about so much to do with food.
Um, and you know, another example is,uh, where you talk about the presence of
the veil, you know, the, um, Muslim womenwho wear the burqa Um, like that idea of
that as privacy was so fascinating to me,like the idea of that being about like
(31:09):
control, like controlling your environmentas a woman, because the external side
of your environment, you know, theexternal side of your environment.
Is so sort of uncontrollable, likepeople coming and going all the time.
Like, yeah, I guess the, thesort of a connection to that.
It's hard to, again, maybe it'scoming back to you making this
dish that you found disgusting.
Like, it's just really hard tounderstand the context of history
(31:29):
and we should be really careful aboutapplying our own understanding to it.
Right.
And I think there's so many ideas aroundfood of like subservience and like.
And I think, you know, in, in the UK,like I just think there's so much racism
against Arab women in that context.
Like there's just so many assumptionsmade of Arab women and Muslim women,
(31:51):
you know, specifically that it'sreally, really important to understand.
Yeah.
Or not understand because you mightnot, but appreciate that there might
be differences from your own experienceis I guess what I'm trying to get at in
N (32:03):
that.
Yeah, definitely.
Definitely.
And as you say, there's, it's so.
Interesting looking at the past andcomparing it to the present because
we're so likely to kind of superimposeour own understandings and our own
you know, the weight of 1200 yearsof patriarchy onto the cooking of the
dish when actually, you know, it'snot, not necessarily the way that dish
(32:26):
would have been cooked at the time.
Lucy (32:28):
Yeah.
N (32:29):
But it, it does also allow us to, I think, look at our norms more expansively.
If we don't just look at themwith sort of the gaze of right
now, if we look at things inrelation to history and look at it.
look at things from the point of viewof long ago, as well as with our sort
(32:49):
of present day knowledge of all ofthe woke things that we all know.
Lucy (32:54):
Right.
There's this amazing detail around thefood that you eat with your family,
like particularly when you're at homein Jerusalem, you know, it was just
really, you talk about, um, is it kayaks?
The bread that you're talkingabout, is that how you pronounce it?
Cake and hummus and falafeland you and your mother boil
white cheese and you make salad.
(33:15):
Could you just tell us a bit aboutthe food that you've grown up with
and still kind of eat in Jerusalem andwhat you and your family eat there?
I'd just really love toknow more about that.
N (33:25):
I can absolutely talk about that.
It's my favorite thing to talk about.
Right.
Breakfasts are a big dealin Palestinian culture.
It's a very, and it's a veryJerusalem thing, specifically
Jerusalem thing to have kaj.
Lucy (33:38):
Okay.
N (33:39):
Because yeah, like Palestinians from outside of Jerusalem will
travel to Jerusalem specifically forthe kaj, which as I said, is this
sort of oblong sesame coated bread.
And it's like crusty on the outsideand fluffy and light and slightly soft.
It's sweet on the inside.
It's very nice.
And there are stalls that sellit all over East Jerusalem.
And usually they'll throw in alittle, like, baggie of za'atar rolled
(34:02):
up in a little bit of newspaper.
Like, very, very excessively saltyza'atar, but it's perfect for Like
just putting on this slightly sweetbread because it cuts it really nicely.
And then, yeah, obviously we'llhave that with like, as you said,
hummus, which everyone in the UKnow knows what hummus is, so I
Lucy (34:20):
don't need to explain it.
And I imagine the versionsthat we have access to here are
maybe not quite what you're used
N (34:26):
to.
Yeah, no, I mean, the lovely thingis that people will just make it
like there are certain restaurants,or they're not Properly restaurants.
They're like specifically forhummus and falafel and food.
They're sort of specificallybreakfast places, I guess.
And they'll have like these hugevats of hummus and ful, which
(34:48):
is, um, similar to hummus in thatit's a type of dip, but it's made
from beans rather than chickpeas.
And they'll like scoop these beans.
These things out and put them on theselike little plastic plates, but then
they'll put like fresh chickpeas or freshbeans on top fresh coriander Um olive oil.
(35:09):
I mean they'll likethey'll they'll make it.
It feels like a fresh tasty I don't know.
It doesn't feel pre packaged andsanitized, if that makes sense.
Lucy (35:20):
Yes, that does make sense.
N (35:21):
If you get it from a supermarket.
Yeah, but that's all breakfast.
And there are other meals that aresort of equally mouth watering.
Like one of my favorites is waratoeli,which is stuffed vine leaves.
And it's different from like theGreek kind that you often find in
Tesco or Sainsbury's, which are sortof, They're like cold and lemony.
(35:41):
Our vine leaves are cooked,are hot, served hot.
And they're cooked with like meats,lamb usually, and tomato and garlic.
And they're served, yeah,they're served hot with like
stuffed courgettes as well often.
Absolutely mouth watering.
So good.
Um, yeah, we love stuffingvegetables with rice and meat.
(36:02):
Like that's, there's a lot of that.
What's not to love,
Lucy (36:05):
yeah.
Haha.
Haha.
You mention in the book several of yousort of use examples and you quote from a
lot of people so as well as this like sortof amazing historical research you have,
there's so many contemporary sources inthe book, it feels so present, you know,
and I just wondered if you would be ableto mention a few of your favourites that
you talk about, you mentioned Spanish.
(36:26):
specifically some Palestinianwriters who write about food.
And I'd just love to hearthose from you and just share
a bit about why you love them.
N (36:33):
Yeah, sure.
I would highly recommend that everyonego out and get Sami Tamimi's Palestine
cookbook because it's beautiful.
It's beautiful.
It's full of great recipes.
He's got even like lots of breadrecipes that are really amazing,
including a recipe for cake.
I tried, I did try to make it myselfin London and it did not turn out very
well, but I don't blame the recipe.
(36:54):
That's again, my own cooking, clearly.
I, uh, also would recommend Laila alHaddad, uh, she wrote a book called
The Gaza Kitchen, which is also reallybeautiful and she herself is Palestinian
who grew up in the diaspora, but she didspend time in Gaza around 2010, I think.
(37:16):
And she collected stories andrecipes from the locals there.
And it's like one of thefew sort of cookbooks about
Gazan food that's in English.
So I really recommend.
Yeah, I really recommendhaving a look at that.
Gaza.
I've never had the opportunity to go toGaza, but I have family members there.
And my, um, and my immediate familyhas also been there and talked
(37:39):
about how good Gazan food is.
They have like a big, like, Focus on fishbecause they're obviously on the coast.
So they have like some reallynice dishes and who else?
Oh yeah.
And I would highly recommend alsofollowing Hamada Shakura, who is a
Palestinian food blogger, who's currentlyin Dafa and he's incredible, you know,
(38:01):
like most people in Gaza, he's like,he's lost an inconceivable amount of,
um, Well, just everything, you know,his home and livelihood and family and
displaced several times, et cetera.
But he, um, went viral a littlewhile ago for the meals that he was
making from aid packages in Gaza.
And he just, he just makesthese incredible, like little
(38:22):
videos on TikTok and stuff.
And, um, yeah, he, again, just abeautiful, uh, beautiful insight
into what's going on in Gaza,but through a foodie perspective.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And he's pretty funny as well.
I mean, amazingly, they're, they'resee, like, they keep, people keep
their humor and their warmth and theirhumanity, despite being dehumanized.
(38:46):
And yeah, there's some really, he, likeone of his most recent videos, he makes
like a giant tub of, um, rice puddingor like the Arabic version Bahari.
And it's just, it's, Like, there'ssomething beautiful about seeing that.
I
Lucy (39:02):
don't know
N (39:02):
what it is, but really appealing.
Yeah, wonderful.
Exactly.
Yeah, I would highlyrecommend those people.
And, um, in terms of sort of lessfood focused, but other people.
People that incorporatefood into their writing.
Hala Alyan is a beautifulnovelist who also has very rich
(39:23):
descriptions of food in her writing.
And again, as someone interestingto follow and to read.
Lucy (39:31):
Yeah, great.
And, and I guess just to kind of, tofinish up, you know, we've obviously, um,
like, it's, it's impossible not to touchon what's happening in Gaza at the moment.
And I guess I just wanted to ask you,what does it mean to look at figures like
Nusayba in this particular environment?
Like, has the resonance towards,you know, the resonance of her
(39:53):
changed view or become moresignificant or anything like that?
Like, yeah, what does it mean to kindof celebrate this incredibly historic
culture at a time when so much ofa, you know, of a culture is being
destroyed, I guess is my question.
N (40:08):
Yeah, it's a, it's a good question.
Um, I guess one honest answer wouldbe that I really haven't thought
about her very much because yeah.
Reality of living through this, um, thisgenocide has been sort of overwhelming and
it's kind of put things like Historicalfigures kind of on the back burner.
(40:31):
But also, I guess it's made me think,
I mean, the, the kind of experiencesthat people in Gaza in the West Bank
all over Palestinians are going throughPalestinian women, they are just They're
surviving so much, they're incrediblypowerful and strong, and, you know, so, so
(40:55):
much more powerful and strong than I am.
And, you know, here I am writingabout this, like, historical figure
who was brave a few times in battle,but she wasn't actually subject to,
you know, aerial bombardment 24 7.
She didn't have her.
Entire home, you know, destroyedin a matter of minutes.
(41:20):
I think actually in a lot ofways, the people that are living
today are much braver and muchmore interesting than she was.
Um, I mean, like I feel a bit silly reallyfor having drawn her for inspiration, but,
um, but also maybe, I don't know, it's,it's nice, or I think maybe it's important
(41:45):
at a time when So much of Palestinianculture and as well as Palestinian life
is being demonized or erased or, um,
or yeah, vilified in someway and, um, and denied.
(42:06):
I think it's.
It's good, nice to have stories aboutthe past that we hold on to, you know,
I think that that is important in thesame way that it's important to hold
on to, um, you know, our food, ourdifferent types of food, our dishes.
Yeah, actually I wanted to say there'sthis really interesting project
(42:29):
based partly out of this village thatI mentioned earlier, Batir, where
they make the beautiful aubergines.
I don't know if you've come across it.
It's called the PalestinianHeritage Seed Library.
Have you heard of it?
I have heard of it.
Oh, it's fantastic.
It's really cool.
It was founded by a Palestinian womancalled Vivian Sansour, and what it does
(42:49):
is work on preserving and promotingheritage and threatened seed varieties
and traditional Palestinian farmingpractices and the stories and identities
that are sort of associated with them.
So like, Sun Tzu finds like keyseed varieties like these things
like I remember I saw pictures ofthese incredible carrots that were
(43:10):
huge, like giant carrots and foodcrops that were sort of threatened
with extinction and she works toactively preserve their bioculture
and recuperate the local landscape.
Yeah, this project was started inlike 2016 but But I mean, it's, it's
the same, it's sort of a similaridea, like I'm trying to do it with
a story, but she's doing it much morepractically and importantly with food.
(43:31):
And you know, it's again, this idea oflike the past and this, our heritage and
land and stories, all of it being kindof connected and important to preserve.
Lecker
Lucy (43:50):
is hosted and produced by me, Lucy Dearlove.
Thanks to my guest N.
S.
Nozaba.
Namesake is out now.
Published by Canongate.
I was really honoured to speak to Endfor this episode, and while I understand
what she means about practical actsbeing a priority at the moment, it's
just also so important to preservePalestinian stories and culture, and she
(44:15):
does this so beautifully in Namesake.
This month I'll be donating the moneyI usually get from Patreon and Substack
to requests for aid listed on theOperation Olive Branch spreadsheet.
If you'd like to sign up as a paidsubscriber this month, all of that,
aside from the fees the platformstake, will go to mutual aid.
If you'd like to make your own donationafter listening to this episode,
(44:37):
if you send me a screenshot, I'llcomp you a subscription to Substack.
Music is by Blue Dot Sessions.
Thanks so much for listening.
I'll be back soon.
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