Air and Love, by Or Rosenboim - Sarah
Israel and Palestine have some amazing food. Once I was in a restaurant with a Palestinian friend in Bethlehem and the food just kept coming. Every inch of the table was covered with small plates of mezze style food from stuffed vine leaves, hummus, pitta, it was all there. And this was only for three of us. I had just finished stuffing my face, when my friend announced with jubilation that the barbeque course was arriving. I did manage to eat some, but have to admit most did come back with us in foiled containers. It certainly was a meal to remember and absolutely delicious. Therefore, when I saw that Air and Love was being published, I was looking forward to hearing not only the tales of how her family’s culinary repertoire developed through migration across central Asia, the Middle East and Europe, but also to try some of the recipes for myself.
The book is narrated by several different branches of Or Rosenbeim’s family tree, starting with her great-great grandfather, Zion, in 1875 in Samarkand, Uzbekistan. Or has managed to give great detail and colour to her great-great grandfather’s story due to his memoir. These chapters provide a fascinating insight into life in the late 19th century in central Asia, and how despite the lack of fast transportation routes, people regularly took vast journeys between continents to improve their livelihoods and living situations. Zion travelled from Samarkand to Jerusalem via Moscow on several occasions during his life, depending on where offered the best situation for him and his family. While reading this I had to check the map at the front of the book to see just how far it was. With today’s modern standards it seems almost incomprehensible to travel so far without the means of long-distance trains, planes or even decent roads. Yet for many at that time it was a way of life. And of course, by taking the slow route, her family could pick up many different recipes along the way.
The recipes are dotted at regular intervals within the book, based on when her family would cook them. The ingredients list is written within the recipe itself and so I had to read a few of them twice in order to find out what I would need to buy, and then what I would need to do. In her book she has a recipe for stuffed vine leaves which I’m looking forward to try making as my parents have a vine in their greenhouse which has lived there longer than they have. I also made the clementine cake, which was easy to follow, and turned out to be a very light sponge, perfectly paired with a dollop of cream.
Later in the book she jumps to another branch of her family tree from Riga, Latvia. Their story of displacement starts with the Second World War when they fled to central Asia. Once the war was over, they returned to Europe only to find the wake of devastation to Jewish families from the Holocaust. After a period of uncertainty within an American run displaced person’s camp, they were granted entry into Israel to begin new lives. This then meant her family develop an eclectic mix of European, Middle Eastern and Central Asian repertoire of recipes, which has come to represent their journey over the last 150 years.
In the end, as much as this book is about the food of Or’s heritage, it also provides colour and depth to a story of migration. It feels so often the case that the narrative around migration is faceless. We are told about the movement of the people and the issues it causes, but don’t often hear from the people themselves. As the author’s grandmother told her, “You can’t live off air and food alone, you need food!”. And I think that by intwining this story with food, something that is not only essential to life, but also provides so much enjoyment and cultural identity to many, she has managed to make a topic, which can often have so many negative connotations, seem human. I hope that when people read this book, they come away with a bit more understanding and kindness of people’s situations.
Sarah
