Today I had a food and soul experience that I have to share with you.  Food tells about life and can communicate more than words. Through food it is possible better to understand a community, even a country. And this is what happened  today at restaurant Tawlet Souq El Tayeb in Beirut where the Palestinian women of the Nahr al-Bared camp in Lebanon involved in the Atayeb Falastine project  prepared their traditional recipes. Women and their eyes.  Women and their hands. Traditional Food. Colors, consistency, taste.  Starting  from the Khebez Asfar , traditional bread  with  the  yellow  of the curcuma and the black of the nigella seeds: when you break it, the story begins…

The dark green smooth texture of the Bisara ( fava beans and molokhia puree) with a hot red tomato sauce.

 

The multicolor- and the multigreen  of the creamy and -slightly bitter –citric salads. The golden brown of the crunchy Makholubeh (an upside dish of layers of rice, fried eggplants , onions, chicken, topped with roasted almonds, like a building made of different families that match together)

The white of the spicy -juicy Fatteh with tender lamb -sliced lamb cooked in youghurt with bread.

 The "fluo" pink of the Msakhan, chicken cooked in sumac accompanied by Taboon bread topped with delicious crispy purple onions, fried pinenuts, sumac  and white pure yoghurt.

     And the sweets …so sweet but even not too sweet, every bite an experience… just like life…       Atayeb Falastine is a project about celebrating Palestinian history, tradition and food. It aims to empower Palestinian women in Ain el Helwe and Nahr el Bared  camps and to improve their livelihoods by reviving Palestinian culinary traditions and creating a catering menu, as income generating activity.  The project is founded by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation and coordinated in the camps  by ILO (international Labour Organization)  This has been the second lunch promoting the Palestinian food heritage and cooking made by the women involved in the project Atayeb Falastine  @ restaurant Tawlet Souk el Tayeb that joins Conosci il tuo pasto ...and of course ...  I will be back very soon with a recipe!......to be continued...       *pics by veronica pecorella