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HOW DO YOU SMILE WHEN EVERYTHING SEEMS LOST?
I met the two cousins at the Harmanli Registration and Reception Center. They are 19 and 18 years old and come from Mansoura, overlooking the Euphrates River in Syria. Fatteh is an ancient dish originating from the Egyptian and Levantine areas, which includes Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Palestine. It means “crumbs” in Arabic and consists of flatbread (pita type) toasted, grilled, or fried and covered with other ingredients that vary depending on the region, such as chickpeas.
If you have access to a kitchen, it is definitely worth using dried chickpeas: they are at their best boiled (after soaking them overnight) and incorporated into the Fatteh hot. If, like them, you are forced to cook secretly in the container and only have an electric burner bought by collecting money with fellow nationals, even canned ones will be fine. If you find yourself walking for 20 days in the Bulgarian forest, even cold will do. But even just the can is okay because you must stay agile, plus included in the price your smuggler might have given you Captagon so you don’t feel hungry. Anyway. The bread should be cut (or broken) into small squares and preferably fried. Meanwhile, chop the garlic and mix it with yoghurt, lemon juice, cumin, and tahini. Salt to taste.
At this point, it’s time to combine all the ingredients, as Hussain and Mahmood would like to gather their families, which are scattered among Syria, Jordan, Oman, and Scandinavia. So, put the fried bread as the first layer, then the chickpeas, and finally, pour the yoghurt sauce.
Some people finish it all off with a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil, and you’re done. Your Fatteh is ready, and to make it perfect, you certainly won’t need the 10 attempts necessary for them to enter Bulgaria.
Of course, they have a perfect excuse for not having succeeded on the first try, like the Turkish police who stopped and deported them back to Syria and the area of Edirne, near Kirklareli, to a camp where the only thing to recover from police batons is crackers and water. If, up until then, you hadn’t lifted a finger in the kitchen like our boys, as soon as you stop in a place and apply for asylum as refugees, you too would call mothers, sisters, and grandmothers to action who, with the help of technology, would not hesitate to send you videos and audio in abundance so that you can rediscover the taste of home, push away the memories of the forest, beatings, and torture.
Maybe the barking of a dog will always bring you back there, but the taste of everyday Salad can be your anchor of salvation. It is worth it, I assure you, to challenge the camp guards to prepare this Salad in secret. The combination of cumin with lemon is perfect, almost like that between Mahmood and Fatima, the young girl he married a year ago, just before leaving, and with whom he never stops talking on the phone. As soon as he settles in Bulgaria, he will bring her over, so we give him our best wishes because he will need the recipe for marriage, which is much more complicated than the Salad.
In short, you got it; at this point, you have to cut the cucumber, tomatoes, and pepper into cubes. Make the onion thinner, obviously. Beat the oil separately with lemon salt and cumin and season everything. Be generous, like in a marriage. If you can’t find lemon salt, do as our protagonists do and don’t lose heart by using a little lemon juice and plain salt. You can find that in Bulgaria too, even if it’s the poorest country in Europe and everyone looks at you suspiciously, even if on the Ottoman bridge of the village it is written: “The world is a bridge, on which the path of the king and the poor man passes.”
If you’re a young refugee alone in a foreign land and have never handled a stove, fear not: it’s time to discover the pleasure of independent cooking. Thanks to technology, our chefs have learned to cook guided with love from afar by their mother and sister. And they love to share it!
Talal is also Syrian. He’s 30 years old and a man of few words. His jet-black, thick beard and deep, expressive eyes make up for his silence. To our surprise, he chose to share a dish of Saud origin with us – indeed, THE dish considered the national symbol of Saudi Arabia (but of Yemeni origin): Kabsa.
Chicken Kabsa (because it can be found with various proteins) is a typical dish for parties and gatherings of friends and family. It is cheerful in colour and flavour and skillfully mixes many spices.
It can be cooked in various ways; this is what Talal’s father, who was the cook of his small restaurant before the war, “who grew up before I did,” took away Talal’s dream of continuing the tradition. However, he doesn’t lose hope. While waiting for the documents ( the only activity legally allowed), he keeps training in the camp, preparing the dishes he dreams of bringing to Europe. The method we see with him is one of the most common and consists of stewing everything gently in the same pot, creating harmony and unity between flavours that seem incompatible, like certain populations. In fact, ‘Kabs’ in Arabic also means ‘to crush’ or ‘to press’ everything together, as if to say, coming together to create something better than the individual ingredients. Indeed, it is a dish that lends itself to being cooked in a pressure cooker, metaphorically representing the current geopolitical situation quite well. And I tell you, the same rule applies to the ingredients of Kabsa: either we mix well, or we end up with a mess.
So, take our ark of the alliance, sorry, pot, and start with the chicken. It must be brought to a boil with onions, bay leaves, cinnamon sticks, cloves, and lemon zest. Let it cook well, not salting until the end so it remains tender.
Meanwhile, wash the basmati rice well in cold water; the more starch you remove, the softer, aromatic, and separate the grains will be, as we might mix well, but every individual is different. Drain the chicken, which has absorbed all the flavours like every human absorbs the consequences of the experiences he lives, then set it aside. Strain the broth and set it aside; it won’t be offended.
At this point, prepare the vegetables finely chopped and brown them in the same pot with a generous amount of ghee, oil, or butter. Add the chopped tomatoes, ginger, cardamom pods, and tomato paste; let these elements get to know each other and brown for a while before adding all the spices and the Kabsa mix. Dive the chicken back into this mix, and as soon as it is well seasoned, set it aside again. If you have an oven, give it a good grill; if not, that’s fine. Add the rice to the spice mix, add the broth, and stir it.
Now, cover everything and wait for the liquid to dry out. Your Kabsa is ready to be theatrically overturned onto the serving platter, from where everyone, together, eats using Syrian bread. The chicken, of course, is to be eaten with your hands so they can be sticky when holding your papers to the representatives of Harmanli’s law enforcement community who have chosen to join us at our festive lunch. We certainly would have liked them to enjoy our Kabsa. And remember, people, that no matter who you are and what you do to live, thrive, and survive, there are still some things that make us all the same. You. Me. Them. Everybody. Everybody. To say it with the Blues brothers.
Straight outta Idlib, our chef Majd has made us a helpful video to make Kabsa simple for everybody. Get social with him and salt your dishes like a pro content creator. Even if living the van life or the container like in his case. Majd would like the world to be a place where people in need can have solidarity. You can start by trying and sharing his recipe 🙂
Our last, but not least recipe is one of the most popular in Middle Eastern and Mediterranean cuisine, a recipe that has already traveled a lot with people.
Suitable for everybody and every gathering.
Our last, but not less important recipe is the well-known Dolmas or Dolmadakia, the stuffed grape leaves typical of Levantine cuisine and widespread throughout the area that goes from the former Ottoman Empire, from the Middle East to the Balkans, and eastward to Central Asia. It is precisely from this recipe, as one of the most renowned, that our conversation about food began. Who among you knows how to make Dolmas? I asked. Karim, 24 years old, who is also Syrian but has lived in Turkey, responded. Karim is practical and independent like all younger siblings and offered to teach us this delicious recipe. First, if you have a large family like him, gather them together; preparing the rolls while chatting together will be a joy.
Blanch the grape leaves for about 15 minutes and set them aside well spread out. The filling Karim proposes is simple and suitable for the presence of vegans in our group, but if you want, you can also add some minced meat previously browned in a pan with onions. In this version, mix the rice, previously soaked for at least twenty minutes and rinsed, with extra virgin olive oil (or ghee or vegetable ghee), chopped parsley, and garlic (and meat if you want). Salt to taste. Now it’s time to all gather around the table to roll the Dolmas and reunite. Indeed, if you are among 11 siblings like Karim’s family, you will need a huge table, even though it is known that everyone takes their own path and makes their own decisions as Karim did. So, take the first leaf, cut the stem off, and lay it in front of you with the tips pointing outwards; add a spoonful of filling and start rolling like a cigar; fold the outer sides like a burrito and close these tasty little packages with the tip of the central leaf. Remember to make the rolls tight but not too much: rice, like kids, needs the space to grow. It may take a few attempts to make them perfect, but keep going; even Karim tried to cross the border six times before succeeding. While you repeat the operation until you have finished the leaves, it will be the perfect time to tell your story just like Karim did, stuffing these Dolmas with his dreams and hopes: to arrive in a land where he can study and where his work can be rightly rewarded. Different from Turkey, where the wages were never enough to take care of his parents as they took care of him. He dreams of a future where he can send money home and repay the support he has received from his whole family. Paramedic that’s the profession he has chosen. Germany is the destination for studying for it. But certain dreams require time and sacrifices: Karim sacrificed some of his teeth to the Greek guards’ batons to reach Bulgaria.
In short, making Dolmas is much less risky; once you have finished your story and the leaves, lightly oil the bottom of the pot and cover it with a layer of leaves to protect the rolls from scorching, then lay them in neat layers, adding whole garlic cloves here and there. They must be tightly packed, like 13 under the same roof. Cover everything with water and a plate so they remain well-pressed and don’t roll around while boiling. They must cook slowly, covered by the plate and the lid, for about 30 minutes or until all the water has been absorbed. At that point, you can get rid of some of the lemons life gave you by squeezing them over the rolls. Salt and cook again for another half an hour. Leave them to rest and think about their dreams and hopes, and once warm, they will be ready to be enjoyed, accompanied by yoghurt or pomegranate molasses.
You can also stuff other vegetables using the same cooking technique: Karim added some stuffed zucchini here.
Between southern Bulgaria and northern Turkey lies ancient Thrace, a region steeped in history and humanity in constant motion between east and west. It is here, among the hills of this mysterious land, that our journey took shape. A voyage intertwining the lives of ourselves, a researcher and a photographer, with those of the volunteers of the international movement “No Name Kitchen” and with the hearts and souls of the young Syrian asylum seekers hosted at the Harmanli Registration and Reception Center, the largest in Bulgaria.
Together, we immersed ourselves in a world where food is not just nourishment but a bridge uniting cultures, experiences, and hopes. Through the warmth of a shared kitchen, we discovered a profound connection, an invisible thread binding strangers to become friends, and clandestine cooks turned into custodians of the flavours of their distant homeland.
Harmanli, a town of about 30,000 inhabitants near the border with Turkey, born from an ancient caravanserai for travellers heading to Edirne, the gateway to the east, is today an inhospitable place frozen in a time that authorities and mainstream culture would like to erase, but which remains vivid in the regret for “an easier life” of its inhabitants, evident in the soviet architectural brutalism that feels like a wound on an otherwise spring-like and pleasant landscape.
In a world divided by borders and restrictive policies, clandestine cooks are the emblem of a silent resistance seen through the smoke of barricades made of stoves and spices. It is a cry of protest against a system that forces individuals into clandestinity. Through a simple act of survival, they turn suffering into dignity and simple ingredients into a journey of memory and hope.
9 February – 20 March 2024
Researcher: Rassa Ghaffari
Commissioned artist: Emanuela Zampa
