Laila El-Haddad—a Palestinian writer and journalist explains the importance of the Zibdiya—mortar and pestle—in the everyday preparation, cooking and serving of Gazan cuisine in the home. For more information about the cookbook "The Gaza Kitchen: The Gaza Kitchen A Palestinian Culinary Journey" , watch this extended interview with the co-author of the book: The Gaza Kitchen: An Interview with Laila El Haddad    • The Gaza Kitchen: An Interview with L...  .

Transcript: Lightly Edited

Cumin is used extensively, garlic, green peppers, in fact, these three things are usually used in unison and they're frequently ground together [to] form the basis for a lot of dishes and a lot of our recipes begin with a mortar and pestle.
Mash well with some salt, garlic, dill seeds and green peppers, and this device you see here, it's called a zibdiya and on the face of it, it's just a mortar and pestle. But it's ubiquitous in Gaza and you find it in every single household, urban and rural, rich and poor, and they get really well seasoned and they last four decades, people consider the members of the household and they're very fond of them.
And it's fashioned from the red mineral clay that is so abundant in Gaza. Gaza having a very long history of pottery making in the past was made from lemon wood. And it's fired but unglazed and it has this smooth but rough enough exterior that allows for friction when you're grinding things and what's unique about it is it's used to prep ingredients so you would crush those seeds for example in here in the circular motion like this with salt, until they become really fragrant and the natural oils are released and the flavor really pops, but then you would continue and prep the entire salad. It's a really famous salad that's made here called 'Daggah', it's a hot tomato and dill salad.
And, and then you would serve that salad in the bowl. So it's used to prep to serve but also to bake there's these fantastic stews like a shrimp stew that's baked in a clay pot that you would prepare in this as well and bake and then they come in different sizes as well.

Follow us:
...
twitter
  / cookingupastory  

Facebook
  / cookingupastory  

Pinterest
  / foodfarmerearth  

Website RSS Feed
http://cookingupastory.com/feed

Cooking Up a Story channel on YouTube
   / cookingupastory