Palestinian chef Sami Tamimi speaks out on Gaza, appropriation and his falling out with Yotam Ottolenghi | Canada Voices

Over the last two decades, Palestinian chef Sami Tamimi has been best known as the business partner of superstar Israeli chef Yotam Ottolenghi. They co-authored two books (including 2012’s award-winning bestseller Jerusalem) and opened several London eateries under Ottolenghi’s name.

But Tamimi is stepping out of Ottolenghi’s shadow now, with the release of his debut solo cookbook, Boustany: A Celebration of Vegetables from My Palestine. (Tamimi published Falastin with Tara Wigley, another Ottolenghi collaborator, in 2020.)

After the Oct. 7, 2023, attack by Hamas that triggered a nearly two-year siege on Gaza by Israel, Tamimi wondered whether he should change the narrative for the book, to make it more political. He stuck with the original plan – to fill it with dishes inspired by the produce of his grandparents’ West Bank garden – and has used his other platforms to call attention to the devastation in Gaza, particularly the forced starvation.

In an interview with The Globe and Mail, Tamimi discussed the impact of the occupation on Palestinian food, his frustration with industry peers who have not spoken out about Gaza and his falling out with Ottolenghi.

You grew up eating fruits and vegetables on your grandparents’ boustan, their garden, in the West Bank. Tell me what that was like.

What I got from it is this love for the whole farm and taking care of the vegetables and the fruit, how much effort and planning went into it. Most of our diet was plant-based. Having a boustan meant that my grandfather had to plan to make sure they’d have something to eat all year round.

When you were growing up, how did you see the occupation change the kind of food Palestinians were eating?

People would come from the villages and bring their produce and sell it in the main markets and this kind of disappeared after Israelis built the separation wall [in the West Bank]. People had less access to different parts of the country, including Jerusalem. A lot of the land had been taken away from them, so there were also less people producing vegetables and other kinds of ingredients.

Until quite recently we were using the labels “Middle Eastern” or “Mediterranean.” Why is it important to highlight Palestinian dishes?

As a Palestinian it’s really important because I see it – more in restaurants and less in cookbooks – where our food is taken to different kinds of narratives and being changed in a way that I find quite lazy. You open a restaurant on the back of other people’s culture without telling the story. When you take that and just strip it down and call it “Israeli modern cuisine,” it makes me really angry.

What dishes do you feel have had this kind of rebranding, this divorcing from history?

Falafel and hummus. They’re not exclusively Palestinian – each country has their own version and each does it slightly different. But these recipes have been there for hundreds, thousands of years, and Israel is the last place that I would want to label them as their national dishes. In a way, Israel is the youngest state, whereas these dishes have been going on for much longer than that.

Since this invasion of Gaza in October, 2023, we in the West have seen images of hospitals being bombed, children being killed, entire families buried under rubble. But so many have been silent. It feels like in the last month there’s been a turning point. What do you think it is that has made people speak out now?

I just want to correct you here. Bombing people in Gaza started way back. What’s happened lately is that it’s in your face. I don’t believe that any governments really care about what’s happening. It’s more the people protesting and being loud about it. You can see these kids and mothers being starved. I think not enough people are speaking out. Especially in the food industry in the U.K. and the U.S. The majority of people are not saying anything because they are scared for their businesses, or their followers on Instagram, or their ratings.

A big chunk of your career in food has been tied to Yotam Ottolenghi. He’s an Israeli from West Jerusalem. How often did the two of you talk politics?

We never did. And it’s really sad.

I lost a lot of friends, and some of them are Israelis, and it really hurts. But if they really want to be my friends, they know what to do. Just a tap on the shoulder, or just a text saying, “Are you okay? Is your family okay?”

I don’t regret anything I did and I had a wonderful 20 years with the [Ottolenghi] company. It’s something that I need to be proud of. But if I could take things a few years back, I would probably highlight the Palestinian side a lot more.

The narrative of Jerusalem bothered me and this is why I wanted to do a book like Falastin after that. I remember sitting with Yotam and saying, “So we’re going to be doing a book about Jerusalem and most of the food we share is Palestinian. How are we going to justify that?”

I think deep down, I was not happy, but then, because of the friendship, we kind of turned everything around in a nostalgic, almost naive way.

Now I wish we did talk about all the problems that are in Jerusalem and Palestine.

What has your relationship been with Yotam the last couple of years?

In a situation like this, you look for people to support you, and I haven’t been getting any of that, so that’s my answer.

This interview has been condensed and edited.