Loading ...Meet the Palestinian-American Chef Fighting Cultural Appropriation in Food
By Mona Khalifeh
Teen Vogue
Abeer Najjar is a South Side Chicagoan, Palestinian, Muslim, chef. Abeer is American.
She is the epitome of what a modern-day American looks like. When you strip away the identifiers, at her core, Abeer is a foodie. From an early age, she had a passion for food. Abeer envisioned having her own cooking show, and while the rest of us were watching Rugrats, Abeer was watching Julia Child. Growing up in the cultural metropolis that is the South Side of Chicago, the typical Palestinian fare Abeer was accustomed to at home was influenced by the foods and cultures of the African, Latino, and Asian friends and neighbors she was surrounded by. Those influences made their way into not only her mother’s cooking but also her own as she took the helm in her home kitchen. Taking America’s favorite street foods, like tacos, and marrying them with a favorite street food of the Middle East, shawarma, Abeer created dishes like shawarma tacos that both intermingled her worlds and created the very food fusion that has come to represent the melting pot that is cities like Chicago.
Before Abeer set her sights on bringing dishes like her tacos to a cooking show, she had a food blog where she shared the food she made. From there, she took the comments and inspiration of her friends and began hosting a secret supper club. The invite-only social brought friends together to sample Abeer’s latest creations. Here, Abeer had friends from all walks of life commenting on and tasting foods that she mixed and matched through her upbringing. It was at these supper clubs that she began to realize that a cooking show could be possible.
The question that remained was: Could there be a place for Abeer in the cult cooking show world. On networks like the Food Network, the Cooking Channel, and Travel Channel, the absence of Middle Eastern chefs is evident. Not only are Middle Eastern chefs missing from programs like Top Chef but Muslim chefs — let alone a female Muslim chef wearing a hijab — are hard to find. While Abeer would not be the first to do it, she would help shed a spotlight on the talents many Muslim chefs have to offer and would like to share with the world but are hesitant to.
In 2015, Amanda Saab, a Muslim woman who wears a hijab, was a contestant on Fox’s MasterChef. As the first Muslim female chef to appear in a hijab on an American cooking show, Saab helped open up a dialogue for chefs like Abeer. But as expected, Amanda faced backlash and ignorance that has only grown greater in today’s political climate of things like Trump’s “Muslim Ban.” With hate crimes against Muslim-Americans at an all-time high, it’s understandable that Abeer had reservations about putting her face out there, but that’s exactly why she’s blazed forward. If women like Amanda and Abeer do not lead the charge, who will?
Abeer pushed forward, bringing her dreams out from the depths of her secret supper club to a public platform at Revive , a hub that promotes change and hope in the lives of people worldwide through the artistry of music, spoken word, fashion, cooking, and more.
Through Revive, she’s been able to establish Abeer’s Day Off, an at-home cooking show where she whips up traditional Palestinian treats with a twist. Making everything from her popular shawarma tacos to rose-cardamon tres leches desserts and breakfast pitas, Abeer is taking Middle Eastern foods that are found in your local Trader Joe’s and bringing them to your table. It’s no secret that Middle Eastern foods have been made popular through food trucks and chains like the Halal Guys, but just as we see cultural appropriation in African-American communities, we see it in the food world with Middle Eastern foods like those Abeer makes. It’s an appropriation of the food and culture without support of the actual people and their struggle. At the same time that these foods gain more traction in grocery stores and restaurants, the very people who are making them are facing backlash and discrimination. With Abeer’s show, she hopes that she can show you not only how to make these popular and tasty foods but also how to appreciate and treat the culture they come from with the same respect as you would the tradition of the American burger and those who created it.
Abeer is an American girl, making delicious food and though her dream is finally coming to fruition, her path wasn’t always easy. In a world that increasingly labels Muslims as “other,” Abeer was worried she’d face backlash or be labeled and typecast by her religion, taking away from the message behind her food. While Abeer is trying to break down barriers, what she is really trying to achieve with her cooking show is legitimacy: legitimacy of her food and of her as a chef. The very identifiers that intermingle to make her who she is and make her food what it is make us what we all are. When you stop looking at what makes her different, you’ll see that she’s a talented chef creating delicious meals that you’d want to make at home.
