Charlotte Ryan speaks to Izzeddeen Alkarajeh and Eman Arurabi, owners of Cork's beloved Izz Café, about their new cookbook Jibrin, preserving Palestinian cuisine and what family means to them.
Speaking over Zoom in what is no doubt a stolen half hour in the storeroom of Izz Café, the beloved Palestinian institution in Cork City, Izzeddeen Alkarajeh and Eman Arurabi are trying to explain how big, how all-encompassing food is to Arabic culture.
"Because I'm visiting from Ireland, I will be visiting multiple aunts at the same time", Izz says, recalling the times he would visit family in Palestine.
"I will go from one house to another, having a meal in the first house. When I go to the second aunt and tell her, 'Please, I had my meal. Please, I can't eat,' she would express her sadness: ‘Why are you not eating from my food? Can I give you something lighter? Can I make a snack? Or can I fry a few eggs? Okay, take something from me’."
"Food brings us back to the roots of caring and caring between people. No one in the household would be interested in serving a meal for himself. He would be begging for someone to sit with him at the table."
With Jibrin, Izz and Eman’s new Palestinian cookbook, published with Blasta Books, the couple invite readers to sit at their table, sharing stories of history, triumph over struggle and the joy of shared celebrations.
Eman and Izz arrived in Dublin in 2016 with their four children, after years working in Saudi Arabia. Despite once again being prevented from returning to Palestine, which they were "desperate" to do, Izz says they hit upon another stroke of good luck when they entered the direct provision system in Ireland: they were relocated to Kinsale Road Accommodation Centre in Cork.
"I think the community in Cork is the loveliest in Ireland", Izz says, smiling. "Everything was good luck after that."
The couple decided to take family recipes and serve them in the city’s bustling food markets, guided by none other than Darina Allen. "She advised us on everything", Eman says. "After that, we became famous."
A year later, they found the premises that would become Izz Café, and the rest is foodie history.
The café is a distinctly family affair, with the couple’s children stepping in for shifts and the tight-knit band of employees quickly falling into the dynamics of an extended family. This is exactly how the couple wanted it to be.
"Family is not only blood", Izz says. "It's a place you call home where people gather around the table, share food, discussions, laughs, stories. If you come to this café, you feel you're at home. You are having food from someone's home, not only a restaurant."
In this way, the café and Jibrin - named for the couple’s abandoned hometown of Beit Jibrin - are about preservation.
"Our grandmother and our mother, they are passed away", Eman says. "We need the idea to save this recipe for our kids, for the people after them. It's just to keep it, to keep the Palestinian cuisine forever."
Food, the couple say, is the thread that links all parts of Arabic life, especially celebration. Among delectable recipes for creamy hummus, crisp falafel, manaeesh flatbreads, and sweet and cheesy knafe are the time-honoured dishes made by Palestinian families for celebrations.
"Weddings in Hebron province or the Southern part of Palestine are usually celebrated using mansaf", Izz says. "In Gaza, they celebrate weddings using sumagiyya. In the north, Nablus, Jenine and these areas, in weddings, they cook musakhan. The three recipes are there to tell the story of how people share love and gather around meals in their celebrations."
Izz adds: "The definition of the family is much broader in our culture. It's not only the direct family."
Understanding the fundamental joy of sharing a meal with loved ones in Arabic culture throws the ongoing strife in Palestine into even sharper relief. Izz tells me a story that they were taught as children about a family hunting for food in times of famine:
"When seven family members find only a few pieces of a date to share, they would gather in a room, turn off the light and put the date in the middle so that anyone can take the amount without being embarrassed that he's taking more than the other.
"After they turn on the light, they find the food as is, untouched. They find a third-party person to come and distribute the amount because no one wants to feel the guilt of having more food than his brother or sister."
As a Palestinian couple sharing the food of their homeland in Ireland, talking about food on social media is a precarious and often painful balancing act.
In recent months, especially, the team has scaled back the amount of food posts they put on their social media profiles. "During the last two years, we know how scarce the sources are in Gaza, for example", Izz says.
"When we share a meal, and sometimes we think of [their chef] Habib and his brother being over the phone, sometimes they pick a video call, and because we are sharing food in the kitchen, they go out. They don't want their family to see that we are enjoying food."
Still, the team finds endless ways to help their community. Izz Café has become a hub for outreach for Palestine, from selling artisanal coffee mugs made in Palestine and hosting figures like Dr Mohammed Mustafa to organising the Coffee for Palestine project - which has raised over €100,000 via 278 café across Ireland.
As of July 31, the first funds from the initiative have arrived safely in the country.
"You feel you have to do something", Eman says. "We can't stop the war. We can't send them anything except the money to help them to buy what they need."
Jibrin by Izzeddeen Alkarajeh and Eman Arurabi is published by Blasta Books and costs €17.
