Adebut
cookbook from Imad Alarnab comes with a huge weight of expectation.
Yes, he’s an experienced restaurateur and brilliant chef, but he also embarked on an epic, dangerous mission to escape war in Syria to come to the UK. He slept on church stairs, wandered Parisian streets with a backpack containing his worldly possessions. He cooked and fed hundreds of fellow refugees in camps with the most spartan equipment and basic ingredients. There is so much to cover, might Imad’s stories overshadow the recipes, or vice versa? In fact, no. In his eponymous book, Imad shares recipes beautifully interwoven with his story. His life has been so mindblowing that the accompanying words, often brief, almost feel understated, but this only adds to their strength and impact. Imad doesn’t waste his words.
He opens by stating that he was “a refugee, an asylum seeker, a displaced person, an illegal immigrant”. He asks us what image that conjures up in our minds. And throughout the text he pushes us to question how we interpret the lives and experiences of people around us, and how we might describe them, and how that perception changes when people experience success or hardship.
He writes of memories of Damascus, where he raised his family and built a mini empire of three restaurants, all of which were bombed by Bashar al-Assad’s regime. And he talks of the devastation that followed the Arab Spring of 2010, how he and his family came close to death on several occasions, by bomb or police brutality, before making the heartbreaking decision to flee.
Despite the tragedy of his experience, there is a strong thread of hope running through the book. There’s the kindness of strangers he met en route, and the memories of his birthplace evoked through recipes he shares with us. There’s Hawadir, which translates to ‘ready things’, that is food to offer unexpected guests. Imad precedes the recipes with recollections of his mother’s disappointment if he visited and didn’t eat something.
So much in this book is a celebration of fresh produce; colourful and inviting. A celebration of the better parts of Syria, away from the bombs and destruction. A lot of the spice blends and oils Imad instructs us to make can be used across a variety of recipes, inviting us to cook enticing spreads built on several different recipes.
I made hummus bellahma, blended chickpeas topped with gently spiced lamb. It’s a dish I’ve enjoyed while eating out but never managed to make as good as restaurant versions. Until this one.
It’s a process that needs to be started the day before by first soaking the dried chickpeas. You can use jarred ones, Imad says, but dried is preferred, so I followed his suggestion and feel it pays off. The flavours are incredible and the texture of the hummus was beautifully smooth and moreish. We made a huge batch which was gone in four days, eaten with different toppings thanks to the choice of four recipes in the book.
Ever since, I’ve regularly had a bowl of chickpeas soaking for more hummus (a family crowd-pleaser) and Imad’s falafel, which contain no herbs like others I’ve cooked, yet are not lacking for their absence. They are light and crisp and wonderful.
Today, Imad is once again a successful restaurateur with a busy venue right in the heart of London. It’s a remarkable ascent, but one wholly expected given his background. He has never forgotten where he came from and the journey he took to escape. In using this book as a means to remind us all of the importance of humanity in a world that increasingly feels like it’s forgetting, this feels like one of the most important – and delicious – cookbooks of recent times.
“This feels like one of the most important – and delicious – cookbooks of recent times”