Have you ever come across someone who, when asked a banal, small-talky question such as "so where are you from?" insists on giving you a long-winded explanation of how their mother's first cousin one removed was descended from the Russian tsars, while their father was born in Croatia, raised in Zimbabwe but proudly considers themselves Canadian? I am one of those people. While I can't claim a heritage quite as particular as the one I've just described, it's complex enough to make people regret ever asking me the question in the first place. My dad, for example. Born and bred in Baghdad, educated and married in the UK, and now happily living the ex-pat life in Brussels. He considers himself Brit by all accounts; he appreciates queuing for example, sings the Beatles like a native and gets sunburnt as fast as any pale and freckly Englishman. He loves being asked about his strange surname and incongruous looks, his Arabic culture a source of deep pride.
Apart from at the occasional major family gathering where men swing handkerchiefs in the air, women ululate at unthinkable pitch and everyone dances around in large circles, we don't really consider ourselves an "Arabic" family. That is, until we start talking about food. While I can't say that my childhood memories of my paternal grandmother's (Bibi, in Arabic) food are fond ones (every Friday she would make bamia, stewed okra with interminably chewy chunks of lamb in a fragrant sauce and would cajole me into finishing it: "one spoon for Daddy, one for Mummy, one for Jesus...") I am proud to admit that I've grown into it. Well, some of it. Rather than the cardamom-heavy Iraqi dishes, I've discovered something of a passion for the food of the Lebanon, Iraq's fashionable and sophisticated cousin where Dad's family would holiday. Mezze is fun food. Fact. It instinctively makes you think of summer. It's vegetarian-friendly, and can even, at a stretch, be considered healthy. Maybe. Many traditional Arabic dishes require hours in the kitchen, and none of us has the time or the ingredients to do any of my family's recipes justice. So trips to Lebanese restaurants are a treat.
Ever the intrepid explorer when his stomach is concerned, it took Papa G very little time to locate his local Lebanese eatery in Brussels. He goes there so often they have his number stored on their phone. It's a little place split into a deli and cafe on the ground floor, with the "posh" restaurant upstairs. It's always packed, and the queue for the sumptuous deli counter, piled high with flatbreads, stuffed vineleaves, and about seven types of baklawa often snakes out the door. Needless to say it smells amazing and the food never fails to disappoint. During my most recent visit to the city we ate there twice. Once just wasn't enough.
Let me set the scene: we arrive, and the staff greet my dad warmly in Arabic, several of them shaking his hand. They call one another habibi, a term of endearment used among family and friends. They offer us a choice table by the window, and quickly bring over a bowl of olives, a tiny pot of yogurt and a basket of warm khobiz -- a type of unleavened bread similar to pitta. After a much deliberation, we order a selection of hot and cold mezze: houmous, moutabl (also known as baba ghanoush -- a smoked aubergine dip that makes Dad go weak at the knees) along with lentils, beans and fattoush, a lemon-drenched salad topped with bits of crunchy bread.
As we eat, the conversation naturally turns to Iraq, and my dad's childhood. He talks wistfully of their big white house with a garden shaded by date palms, of eating wedges of watermelon and soft white cheese in the sunshine, and of sleeping on the roof under a canopy of stars when it got too hot to stay inside. Sadly the city and lifestyle he remembers no longer exist. We don't even know if the house is still there. The family left Iraq before the political situation spiraled out of control, and while they have, by and large, assimilated to British life, they are left with a profound nostalgia and homesickness for their country. If anyone were to return (and they probably won't) they would find Baghdad a very different place -- the town they knew and loved remains only in memory.
Thankfully, food remains a way to access this memory, and, when shared with family, serves as a comfort that all is not lost. The house may be gone, but the people have not. The dishes they know and love are a fundamental piece of home, and provide a sense of safety and security, as well as celebration and thanksgiving. So while I sit and scoop up endless mouthfuls of foul medames (stewed fava beans) with bread (cutlery is only used when the khobiz runs out or your clothing is at risk), I feel that I am somehow honouring this tradition, and maintaining contact with a place I will probably never see, but which has inexorably shaped my family and my life, for better or for worse. It is the taste of my father's past, of a language I do not speak and a culture with which I cannot admit to be truly familiar. Iraqi history and its way of life are fairly alien to my current existence, but food bridges the gap. It makes me feel linked to this ancient city in the desert, and just a little proud.
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