The Arab-Israeli Cookbook

Synopsis

While sharing their recipes, Israelis and Palestinians - Christians, Jews and Muslims - also reveal how they manage to live in a land of walls, checkpoints and suicide bombings. Every person in this play is real. They each have a story to tell, and sometimes those stories, like recipes, gain strength by being collected together. Kusa mahshi u waraq (stuffed courgette and stuffed vine leaves) jostles with gefilte fish; Thai stir fry with barbequed goat's testicles; fattoush (stale bread salad) and kibbeh (pounded wheat and lamb) with Greek salad. For divided communities who still have a land and its produce in common, this is a cookbook like no other.

Our Review:

11 June 2004

Directors Rima Brihi and Tim Roseman and writer Robin Soans travelled around Israel and the West Bank in autumn 2003 interviewing everyday people caught up in the region's ongoing conflict. The result can now be seen on stage at the Gate Theatre in the shape of The Arab-Israeli Cookbook and shortly in a companion book too.

During the course of the evening at the Gate, we're introduced to Israelis and Arabs alike who wax lyrical about their day-to-day experiences living on a new kind of front line. Each character has his or her own concerns but what all their stories share are fear and food. Some just refer to dishes, others actually prepare the food before our eyes. The theory is clear – however different we are, whatever religion whether Christian, Jewish or Muslim, we all eat and we all die.

For me, the main problem with The Arab-Israeli Cookbook is one of effect without cause. In the main, we’re faced with Christian Ar...

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