Amid Grief Over Gaza, Palestinian People Are In search of Consolation in Molokhia

Manal Farhan misplaced her urge for food. It was November of 2023, greater than a month because the October 7 assault by Hamas in Israel, killing 1,139 civilians and members of the Israeli navy and taking greater than 200 hostages. The violence that day sparked an Israeli siege on the Gaza Strip that had already killed greater than 14,000 Gazans (the toll has climbed astronomically since), flattening buildings, and making a dire humanitarian disaster. Farhan, a Palestinian American within the throes of intense grief, hand-stitched a Palestinian flag and hung it outdoors her residence in Logan Sq.. Then, she says she acquired a name from the administration firm representing landlord Mark Fishman telling her to take away it — if she didn’t, she’d be evicted. “I stated ‘I’m Palestinian and there’s a genocide.’ They stated, ‘You must stay impartial,’” Farhan recounts.

Between anxiousness in regards to the eviction and the horror of witnessing Palestinians slaughtered and dismembered by bombs day by day on social media, Farhan struggled to eat. “Once you’re carrying that degree of stress, your physique stops responding to starvation. Starvation turns into a secondary concern,” she says. However starvation would typically return when her mom Karima would make molokhia (ملوخية), a leafy stew with roots in Egypt that at the moment represents a unifying dish throughout the Arab world. Molokhia, the nationwide dish of Egypt, is historic. The pre-Arabized roots of its identify means “for the royals” or “for the gods.” The leaves, additionally referred to as jute mallow, unfold from Egypt throughout the Arab world with migration and commerce. It’s seasoned merely with salt, garlic, and lemon, boiled in hen broth, and sometimes served with hen or lamb.

In instances of turmoil, we flip to the dishes that make us really feel protected, and an increasing number of as of late, individuals in Chicago — residence to one of many nation’s largest and oldest Palestinian immigrant communities — are searching for solace in a bowl of molokhia. As one rely estimates at the very least 186,000 Palestinians could have been killed by Israeli forces — in response to a letter printed by researchers within the British medical journal the Lancet — Arab People are trying to find consolation and solidarity by any means. In that local weather, the dish is taking over a brand new political significance for a lot of Arabs launched to it for the primary time. Nearly each weekend, organizations just like the U.S. Palestinian Neighborhood Community and College students for Justice in Palestine set up giant protests downtown. On Thursday, August 22, teams assembled outdoors the United Middle to protest the exclusion of a Palestinian American speaker on the DNC. Autonomous teams blockade streets in Wicker Park, protest weapons producers like Boeing within the Loop, and even dyed Buckingham Fountain blood-red, spray-painting “Gaza is bleeding.” And now, because the Democratic Nationwide Conference descends upon Chicago, protestors march and disrupt politicians’ speeches, condemning them for funding Israel’s military. To disregard the political actuality of the individuals who love this dish, then, could be to inform an incomplete story of molokhia’s place in Chicago.

“I don’t know a Palestinian who doesn’t love molokhia,” Farhan says as we eat and focus on her case on the Palestinian-owned Salam Restaurant in Albany Park. The identical Palestinian flag Farhan made in November stays hanging outdoors her residence as she continues to combat what she contends is an illegal eviction. (The owner argues {that a} lease settlement bans any article from being displayed out of a window.) Palestinian Chicagoans and allies have protested the eviction, boycotting the Logan Theater, which Fishman owns. Being evicted right here in Chicago for “expressing love and pleasure” for her heritage, as her federal lawsuit in opposition to Fishman states, is ironic for Farhan. Her maternal grandmother’s residence in occupied Palestine is now inhabited by Israeli settlers. (Farhan’s lawsuit, which argued neutrality was by no means the target — different tenants might fly Christmas and Hanukkah decorations out their home windows, in response to Farhan’s lawsuit — was dismissed in March and Farhan awaits an attraction.)

Alongside graphic images of corpses and rubble, I see displaced Palestinians making molokhia in Gaza on social media. “Mloukhieh is likely one of the hottest dishes liked and made by Gazans. Normally, it’s made with hen or hen broth, however since no protein supply is at the moment obtainable, we’re making it with processed hen broth. As normal made with love, amidst the warfare,” Renad, a 10-year-old content material creator from Gaza, writes in a caption. The shortage of hen is obvious; meat being practically unimaginable to search out or purchase on account of Israeli blockades of meals, hygiene merchandise, and drugs. Many, particularly in North Gaza, have died of hunger. Nonetheless, the dish appears to retain its celebratory and comforting that means, even within the depths of hell. “Palestinian meals is likely one of the foundational features of socialization in our tradition … no matter the truth that [the refugees] have been displaced and dispossessed,” says Lubnah Shomali, the advocacy director of Badil, a human rights group for Palestinian refugees.

Lubnah, a Palestinian Christian, was raised within the Chicago suburbs earlier than transferring her household, together with her daughter, my good friend Rachel, to the West Financial institution to attach with their tradition, though life was more durable below occupation. Lubnah says refugees typically decide up completely different strategies of constructing molokhia from one another, the identical debates I hear in Chicago melded. “Throughout the refugee camps, there persists this must host, invite individuals, and make meals,” Lubnah says.

For Mizrahi Jews, Jewish individuals of Center Japanese descent, molokhia is a part of their reminiscence too, though the Nakba severed these ties. Hisham Khalifeh, proprietor of Center East Bakery in Andersonville, recollects assembly an 80-year-old Mizrahi Jewish man there in Chicago. “He nonetheless had his Palestinian ID in his pocket,” Khalifeh says. The person needed to speak in regards to the meals he’d liked in Palestine and all that had modified since he was cleaved from his Muslim and Christian neighbors by Israel’s formation, apartheid, and ethnic cleaning. Khalifeh says the person informed him in Arabic, their shared ancestral language, “Naaood lal tareekh.” Allow us to return to historical past.

“White individuals love tacos [and] enchiladas… however I bear in mind being a child, consuming molokhia at college and everyone being like, ‘Ew, that is slimy inexperienced stew,’” recollects Iman, a Mexican Palestinian Chicagoan. Iman agrees molokhia is a core a part of Chicago however is uncertain others will see it that manner — which she doesn’t thoughts. “It’s a kind of issues I really feel is so liked however hasn’t been claimed or taken over by white tradition but.”

The primary Palestinians arrived in Chicago within the 1800s, lengthy earlier than the trendy Israeli state was established, in response to Loren Lybarger, a professor at Ohio College and creator of Palestinian Chicago: Identification in Exile. He recollects consuming molokhia ceaselessly on the properties of Palestinian group leaders in Chicago throughout his analysis.

Molokhia, the nationwide dish of Egypt, is historic. The pre-Arabized roots of its identify means “for the royals” or “for the gods.” A Thirteenth-century Syrian cookbook lists 4 completely different variations; one which requires charred onions floor into paste and one other with meatballs. It’s a meals that’s impressed delusion and non secular fervor, because it’s stated that the soup nursed Tenth-century Egyptian ruler Fatimid Caliph al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah again to well being — therefore the identify. (It’s additionally generally referred to as Jew’s mallow, referring to a declare that Jewish rabbis have been the primary to find and domesticate it.) The Druze, an ethno-religious group in West Asia, believed and nonetheless imagine the caliph was God. So many Druze don’t eat molokhia even now, obeying his command. For most individuals, although, molokhia is now not solely for kings or gods anymore. However making it may be an affair match for royalty.

Cooked molokhia leaves have a “viscous high quality, just like nopales in Mexican delicacies,” Lebanese chef Sabrina Beydoun says. Molokhia is consolation meals, one thing teeming and proper within the deep greens, the grassy and earthy odor. “My mother would put together it with numerous pleasure,” she says. “As I’ve gotten older, I look again on [it] with fondness and nostalgia.”

And everybody has a distinct manner they like their molokhia — the variations and debates are virtually a part of the expertise. “Everybody does it their manner, and everyone seems to be satisfied their manner is best,” Beydoun says, laughing.

My good friend Rachel, a former participant on Palestine’s nationwide basketball group, prefers molokhia leaves entire (Beydoun says that is frequent amongst Lebanese individuals), whereas my different Palestinian good friend Rayean grew up with floor leaves. Farhan’s mom Karima’s particular ingredient is a little bit of citric acid.

At Cairo Kebab, the town’s solely Egyptian restaurant, molokhia grew to become the second-most requested dish amongst its Arab diners because the spot started serving it day by day in 2023 off Chicago’s fabled Maxwell Avenue in College Village, in response to co-owner Mohammed Saleh. “House meals floor us and make us into who we’re,” he says. Molokhia is arguably half of a bigger shift, the place eating places owned by marginalized ethnic teams are more and more serving dishes as soon as relegated to the house, on account of each wider consciousness by means of media, need for the dishes amongst immigrant communities eager for acquainted meals, and cooks feeling empowered to discover their identities in a deeper manner.

“Loads of our clients who’re Palestinian or Jordanian will ask for a bunch of lemon, or will ask for us to not cook dinner it with garlic,” says Mohammed.

Ahmed, the proprietor and head chef of Cairo Kebab and Mohammed’s father, provides that until they’ve had molokhia earlier than, “People eat it nonetheless we serve it.”

Ahmed makes the restaurant’s model with a lot of garlic in scorching butter, whereas Raeyan’s household goes gentle on garlic. I really like the hen with crispy, roasted pores and skin, and ceaselessly alternate between spooning the molokhia onto the rice and hen, and spooning rice and hen into the molokhia. Some prefer it skinless and boiled. Most of my pals eat it with rice; Ahmed says many favor sopping it up with bread, and a few eat it plain like soup, with a spoon or gentle sips from the bowl. Normally, it’s served with squeeze after squeeze of contemporary lemon.

Khalifeh has fond reminiscences of molokhia with quail. Ahmed says in Egypt’s second-largest metropolis, the port city of Alexandria, it’s typically made with shrimp, and a few use rabbit. In Tunisia, the molokhia is dried and floor right into a powder, leading to a silky, practically black-colored stew with lamb. Sudanese individuals, due to their shared historical past with Egypt, additionally love molokhia. It’s spelled molokhia, mlokheya, molokhia… The variations are limitless and dizzying.

“Once I was a child in Egypt, molokhia wasn’t only a meals, it was an occasion,” Eman Abdelhadi, an Egyptian Palestinian author and sociology professor on the College of Chicago, wrote in an electronic mail. “An entire day could be spent within the arduous processes of washing, drying, and chopping it. It was one thing all of us appeared ahead to.” Ahmed says that in Ramadan iftars, a time of gathering after fasting all day within the Muslim holy month, many purchasers request at the very least two plates of molokhia when breaking quick.

For Arab Chicagoans who didn’t develop up with molokhia, Chicago is commonly the place they first tried it. “We don’t have molokhia in Morocco. However I heard of it as a result of we used to observe previous [Egyptian] motion pictures,” says Imane Abekhane, an worker at Cairo Kebab. “Then I got here to Chicago, tried the Egyptian molokhia, and I liked that.”

Once I first began investigating molokhia for this piece, so a lot of my Arab pals informed me Cairo Kebab’s was the perfect place to strive it in Chicago — a bowl made me perceive why. Tender roasted hen, shiny inexperienced molokhia balanced with simply sufficient garlic and salt, vermicelli noodles within the rice, and a facet of do-it-yourself tomato-based sizzling sauce with chile flakes, chile pepper, and black pepper — all scrumptious. Ahmed made the molokhia at my desk the best way it’s generally made in Egypt, with aptitude and efficiency, a gloopy river of inexperienced cascading from one saucepan into one other earlier than pooling in my bowl. Mohammed notes that he’s seen extra Palestinians and Arabs come into Cairo Kebab for residence dishes like molokhia because the devastation started in Palestine final 12 months.

Even when everybody can not agree on tips on how to make it, everybody I spoke to agrees that molokhia is an Egyptian dish. However due to the big inhabitants of Palestinians in Chicago, many’s first assembly with molokhia — together with mine — is at a Palestinian good friend’s residence, or at Palestinian-owned grocers like Center East Bakery, the place Khalifeh says non-Arabs typically are available in after seeing it on-line as a part of a rising advocacy for Palestinian delicacies and the Palestinian trigger — their resistance in opposition to Israeli occupation. That offers the dish a sure political significance.

Once we made molokhia, Rachel used dried leaves her grandmother introduced her from Palestine, an expertise Mohammed Saleh says is frequent. “Once we go to Egypt, my mother and father are all the time gonna deliver again at the very least one suitcase stuffed with dry pre-packaged items, together with molokhia,” he says.

Frozen and dried leaves are additionally available in Chicago, at Center East Bakery, Sahar’s Worldwide Market, or Feyrous Pastries and Groceries in Albany Park. Each Raeyan and Rachel insist that dried — which produces a darker shade than frozen — is best. Ahmed says dried has its deserves, however frozen leaves protect molokhia in its unique state extra successfully, the method of drying giving it a distinct style and shade. “Frozen is as near molokhia leaves harvested in Egypt by hand as you may get,” he says. Khalifeh, in distinction, is adamant that dried is all the time higher, saying it has a taste and texture that frozen can by no means obtain. Certainly one of his ways is to place just a little little bit of frozen leaves into the dried, serving to with shade and consistency. However he and Ahmed each say that not everybody could make dried molokhia accurately.

And maybe one thing is misplaced within the modernity of freezing, one thing exchanged when sifting by means of the molokhia leaves is forgone. “My mother and aunts sit on the ground, eradicating stems and remnants of different harvest[s] like tobacco leaves,” Beydoun says. “It’s a communal follow. It’s a poetic factor to witness.” In dried leaves, I see survival — a strategy to transport ancestral vegetation for scattered diasporas. Frozen molokhia should be shipped. However dried could be carried; it’s not depending on any firm, simply those that have a relationship with the plant.

Nonetheless, virtually everybody agrees contemporary leaves are greatest — if you’ll find them. Sahar’s has contemporary molokhia leaves this summer time, however “they go quick and we generally don’t know after they’ll are available in,” a grocer informed me over the telephone. Hisham additionally directed me to Việt Hoa Plaza, the place I discovered contemporary leaves that the grocers there additionally stated are hardly ever stocked as a result of rising recognition of molokhia in East Asian delicacies. In keeping with the Markaz Evaluation, Japanese farmers began rising the plant after ads within the ’80s pushed molokhia with slogans like “the key of longevity and the favourite vegetable of Cleopatra!”

“[It’s] highly regarded in Japanese grocery shops in addition to Korean grocery shops,” says Kate Kim-Park, CEO of HIS Hospitality, including that their model is barely stickier. “The plant is named 아욱 (ah-ohk) in Korean,” she says.

Chef Sangtae Park of Omakase Yume within the West Loop has fond reminiscences of cooking molokhia and consuming it with family and friends. “I add it in conventional [Korean] miso soup or as facet dishes [banchan] by blanching the leaves and generally mixing sesame oil, sugar, and Korean crimson pepper flakes,” Park says.

You may as well develop them your self. Iman determined to start out planting molokhia and different vegetation utilized in Palestinian delicacies like wild thyme (generally referred to as za’atar, although it’s utilized in another way than the spice mixture of the identical identify) this March. “I felt prefer it was an act of preservation and resistance when individuals are attempting to erase Palestinians,” Iman says. Globally, Indigenous cultures stress the significance of seed-keeping, and Palestinians are not any completely different. However planting molokhia was troublesome in chilly Chicago. “[Molokhia] prefers temperatures between 70 levels Fahrenheit (21 levels Celsius) and 90 levels Fahrenheit (32 levels Celsius) and well-drained, loamy soil wealthy in natural matter,” says Luay Ghafari, Palestinian gardener and founding father of City Farm and Kitchen, including that Chicagoans ought to begin planting the seeds indoors below develop lights “4 weeks earlier than the final frost date,” transplanting them into the backyard when the prospect of frost is over and the soil has warmed.

“It will get actually sizzling after which it will get actually chilly once more, so I used to be always working them out and in of the residence after they have been little seedlings,” Iman says. Now, the molokhia vegetation are wholesome and mature, nothing just like the yield Iman sees from Palestinian fields, however one thing she’s happy with. Ghafari says molokhia is an annual that may develop a number of ft tall in optimum circumstances. “Throughout harvest season, you typically discover it bought in giant bales as a result of it takes a big amount of leaves to yield sufficient portions for consumption.” However residence vegetation in Chicago like Iman’s don’t yield sufficient leaves for a lot moreover smaller pots of stew. Iman’s Mexican mom tends to the vegetation at their household residence close to the suburbs. “It’s our bonding factor,” Iman says.

Raeyan’s mom Nancy Roberts, an Arabic translator, typed up Raeyan’s grandmother’s molokhia recipe — the recipe we cooked from — that was handed down by means of generations. This, too, is a sort of sacred seed-keeping.

“I plan to go [recipes] to my youngsters till liberation,” Abdelhadi says. “Mahmoud Darwish stated the occupiers worry reminiscences, and Palestinians have made reminiscence a nationwide pastime.”

After working round in the summertime warmth of Chicago searching for tales about this plant, what have been my reminiscences of molokhia? They weren’t Rachel’s, Raeyan’s, Iman’s, or Laith’s — reminiscences of childhood, household, heritage. However I used to be constructing a relationship with molokhia.

A colleague as soon as stated, “Palestine strains my thoughts.” I by no means forgot it as a result of it so aptly described these previous 10 months for me. Now, one way or the other, molokhia had settled there too, turning into a part of my reminiscence of this brutal time, intertwining with Palestine, with Gaza. “It was very unhealthy at the moment,” Hisham says quietly after I talked about Gaza throughout our interview, referring to the Israeli airstrike that day in al-Mawassi, a chosen “protected zone,” that killed over 100 individuals in a matter of minutes, most of them youngsters. In each interview I did for this text, the genocide both stored developing or the strain was thick because it was talked round. So how might writing about molokhia ever simply be about meals? How might researching, consuming, and making molokhia not make Palestine fill my thoughts, and enter my desires?

One night time I dreamt that Rachel, Raeyan, and I have been bustling round my kitchen making molokhia, me sifting the leaves with henna-stained palms, Raeyan stirring by the range, Rachel chopping garlic. My good friend Omar was within the kitchen too, watching. It was virtually an actual reproduction of how we had appeared once we cooked it.

Besides Omar doesn’t dwell in Chicago. He’s in Gaza.

The day of the dream, Omar informed me the bombing was heavy; he won’t dwell by means of the night time. “I hope you reside. Might Allah shield you,” I messaged again. The following dawn, I acquired a reply. Alhamdulillah. Thank God. Omar was nonetheless alive. For months, this has been the cadence of our messages. I could not dwell by means of this night time. I hope you reside. Might Allah shield you. Alhamdulillah.

There was an evening when, after all of us noticed yet one more horrific picture of a Palestinian individual’s physique mutilated by Israeli assaults and U.S. weapons, it was recommended, I neglect by whom, that we go to Lake Michigan and scream. Once we acquired there, we have been silent for a very long time. It wasn’t embarrassment, however the worry that God had stopped listening to our screams. What proof did now we have in any other case? Then, virtually in unison, we screamed, the sound carrying over the water. And I’ve to imagine we have been heard.

Naaood lal tareekh. Allow us to return to historical past. Nataqadam lal horeya. Allow us to go ahead into freedom.

Nylah Iqbal Muhammad is a James Beard-nominated journey, meals, and leisure author with bylines in New York Journal, Journey + Leisure, and Vogue. You possibly can comply with her on Instagram, Substack, and Twitter/X.