Growing up Gazan

We didn’t come from a large family nor were we falaheen (farmers). I knew nothing about the olive season or the wheat harvest or how zaatar is processed or how to forage for wild edibles like hamasees or khobeiza. I have always been secretly jealous of those who have inherited this knowledge. Neither did I grow up cooking by my grandmother’s side, though my mother—to her credit—certainly encouraged my love of all things culinary. She was a busy, full-time working physician with little interest in the tediousness of cooking for a family, on top of everything else she did. My grandmother was a teacher, headmistress, and feminist, who associated cooking with domesticity and therefore shunned it completely. During my visits back to Gaza, I would often ask my grandmother her advice on how to make a certain dish, only to be shooed away, “What do you want with such useless knowledge?” Food would neither liberate Palestine nor liberate women.