“During the process of ethnic cleansing and genocide, destruction of foodways is an important feature. We may think of the slaughter of the bison that formed a key aspect of the genocide of Native Americans, as well as the uprooting of olive trees in occupied Palestine.
Let’s look at cultural erasure by assimilation and cultural appropriation through the lens of humus—or should we say, humus bi tahina.”
Growing up in a small town in England in the 50s, and then in a provincial town in the 60s, I was mainly familiar with a standard working class British diet, the foods my mother’s ancestors cooked-- Yorkshire pudding, apple crumble, rhubarb pie and so on. But our table included foods not eaten in other households in Melton Mowbray—matzoh, challa, sesame halvah and latkes, foods my father introduced. And at Granny’s house we enjoyed kosher dill pickles, pickled herring, matzoh ball soup and kugel. Granny prepared an array of Eastern European Jewish foods—none of which included humus.
Through the lens of humus, discover how you can use your own kitchen to fight cultural erasure with food.
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