Force-Fed Authenticity
An image of a spread of food in small bowls (including a bowl of hummus and a bowl of pickles) against a white plastic tablecloth. A person’s hand is reaching into a plate of falafel. Photograph: Jeanine Hourani.
Words by Jeanine Hourani.
I hated hummus as a kid. I found the chickpea too overpowering and the texture too grainy compared to labneh which was my favourite at the time. A friend of Mama’s, Iman Fattouh, said to me: “You don’t like hummus?! You can’t be a real Arab then”. I didn’t understand how politically loaded Iman’s words were and I don’t think she did either.
I was seven years old so this was before hummus was a ‘trendy’ addition to lunchboxes, picnic spreads and cheese boards. It wasn’t until I was 12 that the hummus hype kicked off.
“Aunty Mayas, did you know that the white kids at school bring hummus in their lunchboxes and dip their carrots in them?”
“Yeah, of course, habibti Jeanine. To them, hummus is just a dip”.
“As a kid, I forced myself to eat hummus to prove that I was a ‘real Arab’.”
An image of Jeanine Hourani smiling. Photograph: Jeanine Hourani.
As a kid, I forced myself to eat hummus to prove that I was a ‘real Arab’. As an adult, I eat hummus out of the tub with a tablespoon. Over the past few years, I’ve worked to perfect my own hummus recipe, adding different ratios of lemon juice, garlic, olive oil, and tahini in an attempt to reach perfection. My sibling once told me that boiling the chickpeas in water and a teaspoon of bicarbonate soda was the secret. Upon attempting this, my food processor exploded from the acidity of bicarbonate soda and I ended up with hummus dripping from my kitchen ceiling. These are the lengths we go to to prove our authenticity.
For Palestinians, the appropriation of our food cannot be separated from the rest of Israel’s settler colonial project. Zionist settlement in Palestine began in the late 1870s, accelerating with the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the signing of the Balfour Declaration in 1917. Palestinian land then provided a safe refuge to Jewish Holocaust survivors after the Second World War. Jewish settlement in historic Palestine continues to this day through a policy known as ‘Aliyah’ which encourages and incentivises Jews to immigrate to Israel. What is promoted as Israeli cuisine is a collage of imported products that were brought to Palestine through various waves of Jewish settlement, as well as the co-option of Indigenous Palestinian food.
Hummus is a staple food across South-West Asia and North Africa (SWANA) - a diverse region that includes a multitude of ethnic groups including Arabs, Assyrians, Yazidis, Kurds, the Amazigh, among others. The diversity of our region is reflected in the diversity of our staple dishes, such as hummus. For example, hummus bi awarma is a type of hummus with pieces of warm lamb on top, hummus Beiruti is a specific type of hummus originating from Beirut that has extra garlic and additional spices, and msabaha (also known as balila) has similar flavours to hummus but is comprised of warm tahini and whole pieces of chickpea owing it a completely different texture.
In Palestine, hummus is a staple food of the Indigenous Palestinian population and it was also brought to what’s now known as Israel by Arab-Jewish communities such as Sephardi and North African Mizrahi Jews. It is inaccurate to describe hummus (and other food hailing from the SWANA region) as ‘Israeli’. Doing so not only ignores the historical context around how the food came to be Israeli but also buys into the notion that Israel has always existed – which it hasn’t. Those who settled in Israel adapted a dish that for centuries has belonged to other cultures.
“Witnessing the colonisation of your land and culture in real time kicks you in the gut.”
When I visited my homeland of Palestine for the first time, I was finally able to digest Iman’s words. Witnessing the colonisation of your land and culture in real time kicks you in the gut. It’s a constant, inescapable reminder that every aspect of your identity is either under threat of being stolen or erased. As we drove through Palestine 48 (now known as Israel), I noticed that most of the street signs were written in English, Hebrew and Arabic. The Arabic written on many of these signs isn’t the Arabic name for the city, town, or village; it’s the phonetic transliteration of the Hebrew name. The names of our cities: erased. As we stop for food in towns, villages, and cities across Palestine ‘48, I see the staples that I grew up with: hummus, mtabbal, falafel being branded as Israeli. Signs on the front of restaurants proudly state ‘Est. 1948’. Our food: stolen.
Despite a changing narrative, particularly in the wake of the Unity Intifada, we continue to see mainstream food media in Australia continue to promote hummus as being Israeli. This erases its roots and its history, and puts Melbourne’s world-renowned food scene (and ostensibly progressive politics) to shame. It’s time we support and promote businesses like Khamsa Cafe, Knafeh Nabulseyeh, Palestine Fairtrade, and Sprinkle n Dash who are pushing back against culinary appropriation and actively working to reclaim our food.
In June of this year, we saw the #TweetLikeItsFree hashtag flood the internet. Palestinians all over the world tweeted their visions of a free Palestine. Dr Randa Abdelfatah tweeted:
“In a #FreePalestine we don’t have to be exceptional or poetic or recite UN resolutions verbatim. We don’t have to eat konafa or sing folk songs as a measure of ‘authenticity’. We don’t have to prove anything to deserve freedom. We can just be. And that’s enough.”
I forced hummus down my throat as a kid to prove that I was an ‘authentic Arab’...
...In a free Palestine, I wouldn’t have had to.
Jeanine is a Palestinian activist, organiser, and storyteller based in Naarm. She is the Director of Road to Refuge, an organisation that aims to change the narrative on refugees by transferring the power of narrative back to those most directly impacted.