Return to Palestinian soil with chef Fadi Kattan – Libération

“Bethlehem, 90 family and traditional recipes from Palestine” is an invitation to discover ancestral cuisine, also for Christmas a fusion of European tradition and Middle Eastern products.

The Christmas holidays are approaching and are you on the lookout for gift ideas? Find them recommendations from Libé here.

Few cooking manuals begin with such a warning. “The places mentioned by the author may no longer exist, the addresses and shops he mentions may no longer be in operation,” can we read on the cover page. Bethlehemby local chef Fadi Kattan, was produced in 2023, with the desire to tell the story of the Palestinian land with family recipes, sometimes ancestral, in a land that was nourishing. Fadi Kattan takes us to meet centuries-old traditions and committed artisans, opening with a brilliant Palestinian breakfast: juicy oranges, zaatar with olive oil and spices, grape molasses with tahini, pitas with labneh, Nabulsi cheese, quince jam. He takes us to meet Um Nabil, nicknamed “the queen of herbs”which sells in the old town plump eggplants, chard, zaatar, fresh vine leaves, sisymbre officinal (known as “cantor's grass”), mustard leaves, Palestinian arums. He takes us to Nablus where we eat arayes, a kind of pita stuffed with beef and lamb, a specialty made with shrak bread, a pancake