The Table
There are people here who know something I don’t — and I may know something they are trying to preserve.
A public reading of newly preserved knowledge. Sign in to rank it around the kitchens you follow.
Archive record
Oral historyDemonstration record
ruБабушка готовила yaprak каждую пятницу. Горсть риса, виноградный лист, немного мяса — «пока не почувствует себя правильно». Потом, уже в Хайфе, она сказала לי בקול שקט: זה הריח כמו הבית. The name stayed yaprak. She would not say dolma. She would not say stuffed grape leaves.
Recorded by Archive demonstration
Archive record
Oral historyDemonstration record
English / IgboAdaeze Okonkwo’s jollof is a celebration pot. Birthdays, returns from far away, the Sunday that is not ordinary. The base is blended tomato, pepper, onion. Palm oil. Thyme. Bay. The rice goes in and then — this is the law — you do not stir. If you stir, you have porridge, she sa
Recorded by Archive demonstration
Archive record
Oral historyDemonstration record
ArmenianLavash is not a recipe so much as a temperature. Anahit knows the oven is ready when the wall is too hot for the back of the hand and not yet angry. The dough is flour, water, a little salt. A handful until it feels right. She drapes it over a cushion, then onto the wall. Second
Recorded by Archive demonstration
Archive record
Oral historyDemonstration record
French / ArabicSolange Ben-Maimon will not say that pastilla is Jewish or that it is not. In Fez, she said, the same street sold warqa to everyone who could pay for it. What changed was the table it landed on, and sometimes the filling, and sometimes the sugar on top. In Marseille she still du
Recorded by Archive demonstration
Archive record
Oral historyDemonstration record
Hebrew / ArabicMy grandmother Farida would start the kubbeh on Thursday night. In Aleppo, she said, you could hear the neighbors pounding the bulgur in stone basins before Shabbat. When the family left, the basin stayed. In Jerusalem she used a metal bowl and said the sound was wrong, but the s
Recorded by Miriam Haddad
Archive record
Oral historyDemonstration record
JapaneseHaruko Watanabe keeps a pickle crock the way other people keep a calendar. Summer is cucumber and ginger. Autumn is turnip. Winter is heavier, quieter. She has not yet given KinDish a complete recipe — only the fact of the crock, and that her mother started it before the war. Th
Recorded by Archive demonstration
Archive record
Oral historyenI grew up in Torrington Connecticut in a country house in the hills. one of my fondest memory was going to the general store. The place was like stepping back in time. It even had a penny arcade with old mechanical arcade style games. The candy in this store was the mass produced
Recorded by Joseph Korson
Archive record
Oral historyDemonstration record
ArabicLayla Al-Masri turns the pot in one motion. If it holds, the table cheers. If it slumps, the table eats it anyway and pretends it held. Maqluba is theater and dinner. In Tulkarem in Ramadan the eggplant is fried in the morning, the rice washed and left, the meat browned. At ifta
Recorded by Archive demonstration
Archive record
Oral historyDemonstration record
GeorgianNino Tskitishvili judges a khachapuri by the sound it makes when you tear it. If the cheese whispers, it is ready. If it shouts, the oven was too proud. In Tbilisi her Imeretian round bread is for guests who did not warn her, which is to say for everyone. She folds sulguni into
Recorded by Archive demonstration
Archive record
Oral historyDemonstration record
HebrewEsther Cohen’s kubbeh came out of the pot the color of a pomegranate split open. In Baghdad the beets were cheap in winter. In Tel Aviv she planted them in a tin behind the building because the market ones were pale. She had heard of the sour kubbeh of Aleppo — lemon, mint — and
Recorded by Archive demonstration
Archive record
Family testimonyenYes i walked a forest in russia with some friends who were avid foragers
Recorded by Joseph Korson
Archive record
Family testimonyDemonstration record
HebrewChraime is Friday. That is the first sentence. Solange’s sauce is peppers, tomato, cumin, paprika, garlic, a little water — not a soup, a bed. The fish goes in late so it does not break. In Fez the fish came from the market before Shabbat. In Marseille it came from the Vieux-Por
Recorded by Archive demonstration
Archive record
Family testimonyruThe ATELIER RESTAURANT ВОСТОЧНЫЙ БАЗАР ШЕФ-ПОВАР ПЕРВЫХ ЛИЦ БЛИЖНЕГО ВОСТОКА ДЖОЗЕФ КОРСОН С ЕДИНСТВЕННЫМ УЖИНОМ В РОССИИ I created a menu you that celebrated the flavors of the middle east. I took well known dishes and recreated the experience as gourmet menu. From taking Mallaw
Recorded by Joseph Korson
Archive record
Family testimonyenChef Joseph Korson made this dish for a ticketed Oriental Bazaar experience in Volgograd in 2022. The menu was created from the culinary heritage and ingredients found in the Middle East, using locally available ingredients from the restaurant's farm. The plate was sous vide and
Recorded by Joseph Korson
Archive record
Family testimonyenThis is a dish I created for the high table from a yemin street food called mallawach. I had Mallawach as a street food growing up in Jerusalem. When I worked with the Prime Minister I created menus that express the different culinary cultures of the land of Israel. I’d take a tr
Recorded by Joseph Korson
Archive record
Family testimonyDemonstration record
GeorgianSatsivi must cool. That is the whole argument of the dish. Nino grinds walnuts until they become a paste that can stand a spoon, then loosens it with the broth of the bird, garlic, marigold, a little cinnamon. Pomegranate seeds at the end, because the eye has to eat too. She lea
Recorded by Archive demonstration
Archive record
Family testimonyenmy mother esthers favorite new york cheesecake recipe she makes it for special occasions. she has been making it since we were kids in connecticut to now in israel but the recipe is new york city born
Recorded by Joseph Korson
Archive record
Family testimonyenI created this picture for a restaurant i consulted on This was on Bethlehem Rd in Jerusalem This breakfast was traditional eating in the kibbutz movement but soon became a staple offering accross israel
Recorded by Joseph Korson
Archive record
Family testimonyenLamb (Zanab) (1 for 10 people) Ask butcher to cut shoulder into smallish cubes Chop 4 big onions, pinch of parsley, 2 tablespoons turmeric - salt & pepper 4 " powdered cinnamon ½ cup oil (veg) Mix all tog - Place in pot & cook until tender - add 3 or 4 lemons (taste) when nearly
Recorded by Joseph Korson
Archive record
Family testimonyDemonstration record
ArabicThe Haddad kitchen baked a round bread with sesame and nigella when there was time, and bought it when there was not. Miriam found a card in Farida’s handwriting with no title, only: flour, a little oil, seeds, hot stone. In Tulkarem Layla’s bread is thinner. In Yerevan the tann
Recorded by Miriam Haddad
Archive record
Family testimonyDemonstration record
ArmenianAnahit Petrosian’s ghapama is a pumpkin that has become a bowl. Rice, dried fruit, honey, butter, a little cinnamon. In Yerevan it comes to the new-year table whole, then is opened so the steam stands up like a blessing nobody wants to name too loudly. She bakes lavash the day b
Recorded by Archive demonstration
Archive record
Family testimonyDemonstration record
ArabicFarida stuffed zucchini the way her mother had, with rice, a little meat, and a sour tomato broth. In Aleppo the sourness was lemon. In Beirut a neighbor used tamarind, and Farida took that with her to Jerusalem. She always said the stone basin was the only thing she regretted l
Recorded by Miriam Haddad
Archive record
Community recordedDemonstration record
EnglishQuince appears in this archive the way a relative appears at different tables: in a copper pot in a story from Isfahan, in a jam Farida mentioned and never wrote down, in the Armenian new-year stuffing when the pumpkin was small and the quinces were many. Nobody in these records
Recorded by KinDish archive
Who remembers this?
Demonstration record
enFarida Haddad’s testimony describes lemon, dried mint and a tap on the pot rim. Does anyone else remember that Thursday pot — the sourness, the basin, the sound — from Aleppo kitchens, Jewish or otherwise?
Recorded by KinDish archive
Who remembers this?
Demonstration record
enThe archive holds a quince record with almost no method. If someone remembers the scent, the sugar, or the pan, that knowledge is still missing here.
Recorded by KinDish archive
Who remembers this?
Demonstration record
enAnahit’s family testimony names the thin bread. The gesture — how the dough was stretched, who stood at the tonir — is not yet recorded. Who remembers that motion?
Recorded by KinDish archive
Knowledge, not noise
Demonstration record
heסבתא הייתה אומרת שהקובה חייבת לשבת במרק חמוץ עד שהיא רכה. זה לא תיבול — זה המנה.
Recorded by Demonstration contributor
Knowledge, not noise
Demonstration record
arكانت تطبخ الكبة يوم الخميس. الحموضة من الليمون والنعناع، والطَرق على حافة القدر قبل أن تسقط الكبة.
Recorded by Demonstration contributor