I decided that I was going to become my mother's pupil, and learn how to cook all of the Palestinian dishes that my mother had prepared for our family when I was growing up in Jerusalem. Though there were some places where I could find similar recipes, it was important to me that I learned how to make our particular foods, instead of dipping into the wider bowl of Middle Eastern cuisine. I wanted to cook not just like an Arab, but like a Palestinian. I was very intentional about finding the exact ingredients, the exact flavors that my Nazareth mother used to make her foods.
What spices do you use for the kefta?
How do you make sure the yogurt sauce, for mansaf, doesn't break?
What is the stuffing recipe for the malfoof? And what about the stuffing mixture for the wara' dawali?
Finally, she said, laughing over the line:
Listen, honey.
In every recipe, we use the same stuffing.
It's the same. damn. stuffing.
Sometimes, we put it in cousa. Sometimes, we put it cabbage. Sometimes, we put it in peppers, or in grape leaves. Sometimes, we stuff a chicken. But every time, it's the SAME. DAMN. STUFFING.
Oh.
How about that.
Same damn stuffing.
Same damn stuffing.
Okay, then. That sure makes things easier.
I stopped asking her for the recipe for the stuffing, or, as I like to now call it, SDS.
From then on, when I stirred up the rice and meat mixture, dusted it with a little allspice and cinnamon, and began to kneed it with my hands, I would wait to feel the waves of history break over me, to feel the presence of my grandmother and my great grandmother, cheering me on.
Instead, all I could hear is my mother's voice: Same. Damn. Stuffing. And this from a woman who's language is usually as squeaky clean as her kitchen.
From then on, when I stirred up the rice and meat mixture, dusted it with a little allspice and cinnamon, and began to kneed it with my hands, I would wait to feel the waves of history break over me, to feel the presence of my grandmother and my great grandmother, cheering me on.
Instead, all I could hear is my mother's voice: Same. Damn. Stuffing. And this from a woman who's language is usually as squeaky clean as her kitchen.