“Food is everything we are. It’s an extension of nationalist feeling, ethnic feeling, your personal history, your province, your region, your tribe, your grandma. It’s inseparable from those from the get-go.” — Anthony Bourdain.
My mind kept going back to that quote as I binge-watched the second season of Mo on Netflix.
Mo is an American comedy-drama television series that premiered on August 24, 2022 on Netflix, starring Mo Amer as the titular character, Mo (Mohammad) Najjar. The series is loosely based on Amer’s own life as a Palestinian refugee living in Houston, Texas.
In Season Two, Episode One, Mo is desperately trying to get a laissez-passer: a permit allowing him to get back into the US in order to make his court hearing. During his time in Mexico, Mo was selling falafel tacos from a cart – a fusion platter, combining his Palestinian and Levantine heritage with Mexican cuisine.
Fast forward a few episodes later, and Mo is back in the US, to find his Mexican ex-girlfriend is dating a new man. Not just any man, however, but an “Israeli” chef named Guy, who owns a “Middle Eastern restaurant.” Mo is livid: he cannot shake the feeling of betrayal. Not only is his ex dating another man, but she chose to be with someone whose identity is at the core of Mo’s suffering.
In another episode, Mo is sleeping over at his childhood friend Nick’s house. In search of a midnight snack, he opens the fridge, and to his horror, sees a takeout bag from Guy’s restaurant. And what does he find? There, wrapped in aluminum foil, were falafel tacos. Before knowing who Guy was, Mo had met him outside a housewarming party Guy was catering. While sharing a cigarette, he noticed the Middle Eastern food, and Mo shared that he had spent time in Mexico selling those tacos. Seeing his stolen invention in his best friend’s fridge drives Mo to the brink of insanity. Nick doesn’t understand his outburst and calls him overdramatic, blaming his anger on his jealousy.
This part made me angry. Partly because I have experienced similar dismissal from friends who did not share my cultural background, did not understand what it is like to have a colonial entity steal your culture and claim it as their own.
One of my favourite Lebanese dishes is called moghrabieh, a pearl couscous dish with chickpea, chicken, and chicken stock. The name moghrabieh is in reference to the Maghreb, as in Morocco, to give credit to where the platter’s rolled-up dough comes from. When I would describe it to people, their faces would express confusion first, before exclaiming proudly, “Oh! You mean Israeli couscous?!”
No. No, I do not. And whenever I would react to this statement, I would be met with the same dismissal as Mo. They would claim that Arabs are too sensitive about food (have you met Italians?), and it wasn’t that deep, considering the Levant shared the same type of food in different varieties.
Granted, people from the Levant do share the same food. But there is a difference between sharing and appropriating it. Slapping your name on it and saying we’re alike. Slowly and cunningly seeping into a culture that is not yours and calling it your own.
In the Levant, food isn’t just something you enjoy — it is a form of resistance.
Take the Palestinian maqluba, for example: in December 2017, Palestinian women would serve the national Palestinian dish to protestors in front of Al-Aqsa Mosque, in the Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem, during a demonstration against Donald Trump’s decision to move the US embassy to Jerusalem.
One of the women, Hanadi al-Halawani, said, “I made sure to serve maqluba to the young protesters as a way to underline that Jerusalem is the capital of Palestine, with all its people, food and culture.” The dish would then be called the “dish of spite” by both Palestinians and Israelis.
To some of us, food is recipes that stood the tests of time and oppression. It is our grandmother’s hands rolling the vine leaves. Our grandfathers picking out the olives from the trees. Our mothers’ hands mixing the parsley with the tomatoes and the onions. Our fathers standing on the grill, making sure the meat is cooked just right.
Because when your literal existence is being erased, everything you do is an act of resistance.