For Palestinians from the farming villages in the north of Gaza, this is a basic everyday dish; those from other regions hadn’t even heard of it. This recipe was given to us by a woman from Hirbiya, just to the north of the present Gaza Strip. The village was attacked by war planes and its inhabitants driven from their homes in 1948, but the recipes live on.

The recipe makes use of the tough end-of-season okra not considered suitable for okra stew. Dr. Akram Saleh,