SEEDS OF CHANGE

The simple act of eating together cuts through cultural barriers, says Yasmin Khan

- Yasmin Khan

The midday sun blazed down on the red Mediterranean soil. I took refuge under an olive tree and poured a cup of cardamom-laced coffee. As I sipped, I watched farmers harvest their olive crop, stripping the fruits, and tossing them into straw bags. The patter of falling olives was an ambient backdrop.

When the sun reached its highest point, they broke for lunch and invited me to join them. Freshly pressed extravirgin olive oil, peppery and pungent, was poured into small bowls as a dip for our chewy flatbreads. Sweet juicy tomatoes were set next to squares of briny sheep's cheese, which we ate with pastries filled with wilted greens and sumac. It was a Mediterranean idyll but we were a long way from Puglia or the gorges of Crete. We were in Burqin, a village in the north of the West Bank, in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

I had come here to research a book that celebrates a side of Palestine that never makes headlines-its dazzling cuisine. For many, the word "Palestine" conjures images of sieges, bullets, and hurled rocks. Exploring a food culture and seeking the best places to eat and drink might strike some as irrelevant at best, disrespectful at worst. When Palestinians are literally fighting for their lives, is it really appropriate for a travel writer to wax lyrical about the virtues of their hummus? I believe it is.