The Palestinian Story, Told Through Its Table

Imagine a Palestinian family table.

At its center are dishes meant for sharing: warm bread, bowls of olives, vegetables dressed with lemon and olive oil, smoky freekeh, and perhaps maftoul simmered in fragrant broth. Hands reach across the table. Someone recalls an old story, while another urges a guest to eat more. Here, hospitality is not a formality — it is a language.

It is a cultural journey told through recipes, ingredients and memories, offering a more intimate understanding of Palestinian life — its celebrations, seasons, family customs and connection to the land.

Maqluba is a dish that embodies hospitality. Also spelled makloubeh, is a comforting tower of rice, vegetables and meat that is presented upside down — suggesting the letting go of expectations and embracing resilience. This traditional dish is often served at gatherings and its dramatic unveiling often brings everyone eagerly to the table.

Other Palestinian foods could tell us when a child was born, when a holiday arrived, and when the seasons began to change. Caraway pudding, for instance, celebrates new life; while date-and-nut cakes belong to holidays and family gatherings.

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Then there is musakhan, a beloved dish of taboon bread layered with olive oil, onions, sumac and roasted chicken. Traditionally associated with the olive harvest, it celebrates some of the land’s most treasured ingredients. Fresh za’atar perfumes springtime flatbreads, while summer kitchens make generous use of greens, tomatoes and other sun-ripened produce.

Palestine forms part of the Levant, where ingredients and cooking traditions traveled between communities long before today’s borders were drawn. Ottoman rule, regional trade and the movement of families all left their traces. Palestinians naturally share many dishes with Syrians, Lebanese and Jordanians, yet a recipe may acquire a different accent in every village, city and household.

Gaza has a culinary character all its own. Palestinian writer and journalist Laila El-Haddad, co-author with Maggie Schmitt of The Gaza Kitchen: A Palestinian Culinary Journey, describes a home cuisine rich in vegetables, seasonal stews and rice dishes — often flavored with red tahini, dill seeds, hot peppers, sour pomegranate or tamarind.

Among Gaza’s quintessential dishes is sumagiyya, a deeply flavored stew prepared with sumac, chard, chickpeas, tahini and meat. Traditionally served at weddings, holidays and other important gatherings, it is often made in generous quantities to be shared with relatives and neighbors.

For El-Haddad, documenting such recipes offered a way to introduce Gaza through its families and kitchens. “Why isn’t anyone familiar with this fantastic cuisine?” she wondered, in an interview with Bon Appétit. Her work reminds us that Palestinian cooking is not one uniform tradition, but a collection of regional and family recipes shaped by the coast, farmland, seasons and memories of particular places.

Palestinian cooking is generally unpretentious, but never plain. A few well-chosen ingredients are allowed to shine: the grassy richness of olive oil, the brightness of sumac, the earthiness of lentils and the fragrance of thyme and toasted sesame in za’atar. Freekeh gains its smoky character from roasted green wheat, while maftoul has traditionally been formed by patient hands. 

Its deeper beauty lies in sharing. Meals served family-style create a natural space for conversation. Around the table, people exchange more than food — they share joys, difficulties, hopes, and stories of those who came before them.

Today, Palestinian restaurants are becoming increasingly visible across the United States. From neighborhood bakeries to nationally recognized dining rooms, chefs are preserving flavors and techniques learned from parents and grandparents, and presenting their cuisine with pride.

This recognition includes chef Michael Rafidi of Washington, D.C.’s Albi, whose Palestinian cooking earned him the 2024 James Beard Award for Outstanding Chef.

For American diners, these restaurants offer more than a new culinary experience. They offer a chance to taste musakhan fragrant with sumac, watch the joyful turning of a maqluba pot, or tear warm bread and dip it into olive oil and za’atar. Each dish becomes a small introduction to the people and memories behind it.

In her book Food Beyond Conflict, El-Haddad said that “The origins of regional dishes can be complicated, and absolute claims are not always supported by history. Hummus, za’atar and other foods belong to a broad Levantine tradition, but they have also been part of Palestinian daily life for generations. Recognizing that history does not prevent others from enjoying these foods; it simply allows the fuller story to be told with knowledge and respect.” 

For Palestinians living away from their homeland — whether by choice or by circumstance — a familiar aroma can restore, for a moment, the feeling of home. For everyone else, these dishes offer a bridge: an opportunity to encounter a war-torn people through the warmth of their kitchens.