Gaza, Nuseirat – As Gaza’s entire population suffered as a result of Israel’s siege and food shortages, my family had to find creative ways to expand their food supplies while making up for lost ingredients.
We experimented with new recipes, created combinations we never imagined trying, and managed to come up with some solutions that would help us a bit to endure the harsh realities of famine and survive as best we could.
converting pasta and lentils into bread
We used pasta to make our bread when the wheat flour ran out, as almost everyone in Gaza did.
Bread is a core part of our eating habits, and the current famine means there is nothing else in the market – no fruits, vegetables, eggs, cheese, chicken, or meat.
Instead of cooking and eating pasta as is, people in this country prefer to make bread with it. Unlike pasta, which is typically meant for lunch, bread can be consumed at every meal.
We also genuinely believe bread is more filling and keeps us satisfied longer.
At the beginning of June, we first attempted to make pasta bread. Doha, my brother Fady’s wife, got in touch with her family, who had been surviving on pasta bread for some time.
Doha started working on the recipe with the help of my mum, Saham.
The pasta was soaked until it was soft, then it was kneaded until it came together as a dough. It requires a lot more time and perseverance, and the bread texture is a little different from flour-only bread.
After shaping the dough as usual, my brother, Fady, 35, went out to bake the bread in a communal oven, where he had to wait in line for about 30-45 minutes for his turn.
We were all interested in the taste when Fady returned with the bread. Our impression of reassurance was helped by the bread’s appearance, which was not significantly different from our regular bread.
When we shared a loaf to taste it, the flavour was acceptable, and we were happy – it would serve the purpose.
However, pasta became scarce and cost skyrocketed over the next few weeks as more and more people in Gaza relied on it to make bread.
Many people, including my family, were unable to pay for it, so we had to look for a substitute in July.
So we thought: Maybe lentils would work for making “fake” bread in Gaza.
Following a friend’s recipe, Fady milled lentils into flour before handing them to us to knead them with some wheat flour, as we had done with the pasta.
But lentil dough was far harder to work with than pasta dough, taking my mum and me forever to turn into dough. And it didn’t taste good either, instead tasting more like lentils.
We tried to avoid the odd lentil taste while eating, but it was a major disappointment. Yet we had to eat whatever was available, we simply don’t have the luxury of choice.
The lentil bread got drier, harder, and more and more difficult the next day, making each bite feel like a rock in your throat.
We tried to eat it with Dukkah, our standard breakfast and dinner, after heating it up to make it softer and edible.
Dukkah is a mix of toasted wheat and spices, like dried coriander and dill seeds, ground up and combined with sesame seeds – but in these lean times, we make it with lentils instead, like everyone else in Gaza.
My brother Fady began making terribly funny jokes about how we were consuming dukkah, which was also made of lentils.
We never made lentil bread again despite the fact that many people chose it as their only option because we preferred the taste of cooked lentils cooked on their own rather than in bread form.
A burger treat, but faked
I left my sister Fidaa at home on May 11 while I was volunteering at a shelter in Deir el-Balah, knowing that I was only a short drive away from her place.
My 37-year-old sister, who lost her lovely home in Khan Younis, works as a WASH officer and shares a shared shelter with her coworkers.
Fidaa was in her small cooking space in the shared kitchen, getting ready to prepare something.
She responded, “Fake burgers from canned meat and lentils,” with a sarcastic smile. The recipe is from a neighborhood Facebook group I found.
She wanted to make it as a special treat for her four little children – Basma, Ward, Assem, and Omar Abu Daqqa.
Because the canned meat we used wasn’t made for these purposes, I began to help her shape the patties.
We added some meat spices hoping it would give it a dash of familiar taste because it was ready-to-eat and very different from fresh meat in both texture and definitely taste.
My sister’s husband, Anas, went to the balcony to chop the wood and start the fire so we could fry the patties, while Anas and I played in the room while the kids were waiting for lunch.
My sister brought the burgers back the same day with the same sarcastic smile on her face as she had done them. Their smell wasn’t bad, but their texture was disastrous. Fidaa was unable to remove a few of the round patties from the pan because they were so soft and crumbly.
Because we didn’t have any buns to use as sandwiches, we instead made them out of regular flatbread and some cucumbers.
When we first tasted it, we agreed that it didn’t taste too bad, but with the next few bites, we weren’t so sure.
Although I’m not sure if our fake burgers were good, they were all eaten.
Snacks
We tried making fake snacks in an effort to lessen the suffering caused by this cruel famine for both ourselves and our children.
In June, Doha made chocolate spread from the halva that we used to get in the aid kits before the complete blockade.
Tahini and sweeteners are used to make the region’s famous halva. It has the same flavor as the aid kits, but it can either taste good or be cheap.
Doha added water to the halva and mixed it until it was a liquid sauce, then added a lot of cocoa and heated the mixture over the open fire.
The cocoa served as the spread’s only flavor because it was still halve-free, and we were happy to use it to make our breakfast sandwiches.
Mohammed and Adam, my two youngest nephews, were thrilled and asked their mother to keep making it, but she only succeeded in making it once or twice before the cocoa ran out.
As a salty treat, we made fake chips by frying pasta and adding spices to it – a famous famine snack.
A friend and neighbor, Afnan Baraka, roasted chickpeas to replace nuts on Friday, and then sprinkled them with spices.
Nuts are a very well-liked snack in Gaza. We used to enjoy nuts anytime, anywhere, salted and flavoured with various spices.
We all learned something new when Afnan made the chickpea nuts. It was a really good substitute for what we really liked, though. Yet, it’s not easy to prepare often, as it all is made over an open fire, consuming time, effort and many smoky tears.
We eat essentially the same foods, including lentils, pasta, and chickpeas, but my family frequently jokes that we do the same.
They were common in the aid kits distributed by UNRWA before the blockade in March. Even these foods have since become indisputable and expensive.
My sister Mariam made a bitter joke about how important it is to give pasta and legumes for sticking with us and providing them with alternatives for as long as they did.
But for me, and I think for many others, we feel a deep need for compensation.
I want to eat anything and everything after this terrible blockade is over, aside from the foods I consumed during these illiberal days.
I’d like to be compensated. Compensation for every time I craved fruit, vegetables, eggs, chicken, or anything fresh and found none. I was unable to eat or feel dizzy at all.
