Aromas of Aleppo

It took me going to Mexico to learn first hand about the Jews of Syria. Strange, but true. Thanks to David Zonana Calderon, I was given the definitive tour of Jewish Mexico City, but more on Ciudad de México, D.F, to come! For now, how the Jewish community formed in Latin America is fascinating, and brings us to Syria.

Of the many diverse paths that the Jewish diaspora has taken, it is those that came from the Ottoman Empire that we examine today. It is with a heavy heart to think of the terrible war in Syria and how a brilliant Jewish cookbook, Aromas of Aleppo by Poopa Dweck, contextualizes a lost culture in a tragedy of such enormous losses.

The horrific ongoing war in Syria is hard to comprehend. 380,636 people have been reportedly killed since 2011. The enormity of that pain is impossible. The other part of this war is the forced mass migration. The New York Times wrote on January 31, 2020: “Since the start of the conflict, in 2011, nearly seven of every 10 residents of Syria have been forced from their homes. More than 11 million have fled to unfamiliar parts of Syria or to the countries across its borders, with only around 150,000 permanently resettled. They are now the largest displaced population in the world. And displacement, in the Middle East and elsewhere, lasts longer than ever before: “Once refugees are displaced for at least five years, as is the case for most Syrian refugees,” the president of the International Rescue Committee, David Miliband, said at a Senate hearing last year, they’re likely to stay displaced for more than two decades.” 

The tragedy in Syria is felt by millions. For the Jewish community what was once vibrant is now gone. The last Jewish residents of Syria were reported to have left by 2015.

“I would say without any hesitation that the [community of Jews from Aleppo] is the strongest Jewish community in the world in the sense of solidarity,” Yom Tov Assis, a professor of medieval history at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He recently founded the center for the study of Aleppine Jewry at the Hebrew University in an effort to preserve and study the traditions of his vibrant community. “There is hardly any Jewish community apart from the Haredim, the ultra-Orthodox, that is so strongly attached to its past and traditions,” he said to The Tablet’s Joseph Dana for the article Jewish Aleppo, Lost Forever in the summer of 2012. Jews were in Aleppo before the destruction of the Second Temple, and Yom continues, “what made Jewish existence in Aleppo so unique and vibrant? For thousands of years, Aleppo was an unofficial capital of the Sephardic Jewish world.” 

There are few books dedicated to the once dynamic Jewish world in Syria, in either Aleppo or Damascus, which is why a cookbook like Poopa’s becomes essential. It also happens to have some of the best recipes ever assembled.

This post is dedicated to David, a Syrian descendent in Mexico who keeps Jewish memory alive one street at a time in the Centro Histórico.

The recipe I chose is incredible because of its taste and its shape. Playful and a bit silly, it sits in contrast with the ‘heaviness’ that is often associated with Middle Eastern Sephardic cooking: but fish shaped like a fish with cucumber scales? Gloriously silly. And delicious.

This very popular dish is prepared for festive occasions or luncheon affairs for which a diary meal is preferred. The fish meat is flaked and combined with tehineh, then sculpted into the shape of a fish. Additional tehineh is the carefully spread over the fish like icing on a cake. Because of its interesting presentation, samak bi’tehineh is an attention grabber and is one of the first dishes to disappear from the table.

Tehineh is a ubiquitous maza staple with all kinds of applications in Middle Eastern cuisine. It is the classic addition to maza and meat dishes, which Syrians use in the same manner that Americans use ketchup. Interestingly, in Aleppo, tehineh also made made an appearance at the breakfast table. Asal b’tehineh (honey with tehineh) was the traditional breakfast of many Aleppians and is still enjoyed today. A simpler treatment of tehineh, without lemon, garlic, or spices, is combined with honey and scooped up with Syrian bread. It is an inexpensive, nutritious, and delicious way to start the day.