These recipes for M’hasha, Tebit, Kubba Patata, Bamia, and Baklava honor, preserve, and celebrate Iraqi Jewish heritage, connecting generations of exiled families. F&W editor Lucy Simon shares her family's story of keeping memories alive through cooking, eating, and sharing Iraqi Jewish food.
Lucy Simon is a New York-based wine, spirits, and food writer has been with Food & Wine since the spring of 2021.My grandmother’s kitchen was on the Upper East Side, but it tasted of Iraq.
The food of the Iraqi Jews tells our story. M’hasha is about community. The project of coring vegetables, stuffing them with herbed rice, and stewing them in tangy tamarind is made quick by many hands. Tebit is a distinctly Jewish dish. Traditionally made to feed dozens of family members on the Sabbath, the spiced chicken and rice are placed in the oven on Friday night and cooked overnight on low through Saturday.
My grandfather became a lieutenant in the Iraqi army soon after and was able to travel to Rio de Janeiro by way of Tehran, Cairo, and Lisbon, where he took a boat to Philadelphia, securing one of the 150 U.S. visas available to Iraqis that year. In 1948, my grandmother attempted to flee over the Zagros Mountains in the north of Iraq by dressing as a nun; she was caught but eventually escaped later that year hiding under a sheet in the back of a family car on a drive into Iran.
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