Meat

As a kid, Sami used to be sent to the neighbourhood butcher by his mother, Na’ama, with a bag full of meat chunks, a peeled onion, a bunch of parsley and some mixed spices. Sami’s job was to take the meat, all wrapped up in a paper sachet, to their butcher, who’d then mince it up in his shiny electric machine. Na’ama had her own manual meat mincer at home but it wasn’t big enough to mince the amount needed to feed everyone sitting around the large family table. Such was the quality of the raw meat that Sami could never resist sneaking a few mouthfuls of the mix as he strolled back. Once it was home, the meat would be shaped into kofta or meatballs, spooned into dumplings or cored-out vegetables, piled into pitas or on to open pies, or spread out in an easy one-tray bake.