Foreign.
Hello, and welcome to the menu, Monocle Radio's food and drink program.
I'm your host, Chiara Rimella.
Today we're looking back on the highlights of the menu from 2024.
Over the course of the year, we have picked plenty of cookbooks from the shelves, so here we'll highlight our favorites.
First up, we're back with Fadi Khattan to learn about the importance of keeping Palestinian food culture alive.
It's a team of 27 people that come from 17 different nationalities and they're all cooking and serving Palestinian food with a twist.
Definitely.
It's my vision of what Palestinian food is.
Also on the program, we revisit North London to meet Mary Mitchell and gather the ingredients for some recipes from her highly personal cookbook, Kin.
So, yes, it was always going to be a book that was about my journey and identity and understanding who I am and where I come from, but then desperately wanting to create this sort of legacy project for both of my brother and my mum.
Plus, we leaf through a book dedicated to dispelling myths about wine.
All that here on the menu on Monocle Radio.
The war in Gaza has been the biggest news story of this year, and it's still as hard as ever to talk about food in this context, particularly when it may be scarce or even absent on the ground.
In Palestine, as anywhere in the world, food is an important tool to preserve identity.
This is something that chef Fadi Khattan is keenly aware of.
After launching his fine dining restaurant, Fouda in Bethlehem back in 2015, Kattan went on to open a venue in West London, Akub.
There, the menu honours the staples of Palestinian cuisine with a contemporary approach.
But Kattan felt like he had to go one step further in distilling his memories of the Palestinian food he grew up with.
That's why he decided to commit pen to paper.