Kitchen Arabic
How My Family Came to America and the Recipes We Brought with Us
Title Details
Pages: 192
Trim size: 5.500in x 8.500in
Formats
Paperback
Pub Date: 03/15/2023
ISBN: 9-780-8203-6400-1
List Price: $24.95
Web PDF
Pub Date: 03/15/2023
ISBN: 9-780-8203-6402-5
List Price: $24.95
EPUB
Pub Date: 03/15/2023
ISBN: 9-780-8203-6401-8
List Price: $24.95
Related Subjects
BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Personal Memoirs
Kitchen Arabic
How My Family Came to America and the Recipes We Brought with Us
Stories and recipes that celebrate Lebanese American culture and foodways
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- Description
- Reviews
Immigrant children first speak the language of their mothers, and in Toledo, Ohio’s Little Syria neighborhood where Joseph Geha grew up, the first place he would go to find his mother would be the kitchen. Many of today’s immigrants use Skype to keep in touch with folks back in the old country but in those “radio days” of old before the luxuries of hot running water or freezers, much less refrigeration, blenders, or microwaves, the kitchen was where an immigrant mother usually had to be, snapping peas or rolling grape leaves while she waited for the dough to rise. There, Geha’s mother took special pride in the traditional Syro-Lebanese food she cooked, such as stuffed eggplant, lentil soup, kibbeh with tahini sauce, shish barak, and fragrant sesame cookies.
As much a memoir as a cookbook, Kitchen Arabic illustrates the journey of Geha’s early years in America and his family’s struggle to learn the language and ways of a new world. A compilation of family recipes and of the stories that came with them, it deftly blends culture with cuisine. In her kitchen, Geha’s mother took special pride in the Arabic dishes she cooked, cherishing that aspect of her heritage that, unlike language, has changed very little over time and distance. With this book, Geha shares how the food of his heritage sustained his family throughout that cultural journey, speaking to them—in a language that needs no translation—of joy and comfort and love.
—Gary Paul Nabhan, author of Jesus for Farmers and Fishers: Justice for All Those Marginalized by Our Food System
Joseph Geha deftly blends treasured family recipes with the memories—comic, sad, and sweet—they evoke. A moving memoir of immigration, struggle, and the love that holds a family together across continents and generations.
—Susan Muaddi Darraj, author of A Curious Land: Stories from Home
—Akram Khater, author of Embracing the Divine: Passion and Politics in the Christian Middle East
—Elmaz Abinader, author of This House, My Bones
—Diana Abu-Jaber, author of Fencing with the King and The Language of Baklava
—Pauline Kaldas, author of The Measure of Distance and editor of Dinarzad's Children and Beyond Memory
—Mark Knoblauch, Booklist