LCBO Food & Drink Summer 2017

FOOD FLAVOURS

the syrian TABLE

TRAY KIBBEH & SYRIAN SALAD recipes on page 168

To honour our newest neighbours, Food Editor, Lucy Waverman, spent time cooking with a Syrian family; the resulting dishes enrich the cultural mosaic that we are. BY LUCY WAVERMAN PHOTOGRAPHY BY ROB FIOCCA

When you enter a Syrian home the first greeting is “Have you eaten?” Syrian food is about hos- pitality, family and friendship. A typical meal, usually served all together at room temperature, consists of mezes (small dishes), salads, a meat, stew (vegetable or meat) and a small sweet pastry at the end.     Family matriarch MaryamAlkarem, and Muna Nozha, her daughter-in-law, who have been in Can- ada for a year, came to cook with me for this article through Newcomer Kitchen, a cooperative where people cook and sell their wares. They were wonderful cooks and warm, generous people. I learned that the influences on Syrian food include Jewish, Armenian and Turkish cuisines because Syria was a stop on the Silk Road trade route. The staples in a Syrian pantry include basmati rice, chickpeas, lentils, bulgur, garlic and yogurt, while spices such as sumac, a lemony herb, and za’atar, a thyme mixture used as a finishing spice, dried mint and a seven-spice mixture for meat are the predominant seasonings. Cooks take pride in their presentation and Syrian food is always beautifully decorated.     The dishes we cooked that day, featured here, have a range of flavours and textures that will make them all favourites in your kitchen.

FOOD & DRI NK SUMMER