Last October I was gifted a ticket by friends to join them on a table at a fundraising dinner for The Apple Path, an initiative of Vivien Sansour, founder of the Palestine Heirloom Seed Library. The event was the idea of Sami Tamimi, the Palestinian-born co-founder of Ottolenghi. The dishes were taken directly from his cookbook of vegetarian Palestinian recipes, Boustany, which had been published earlier in the year. As we sat with around 100 other people in Aram, a Syrian restaurant housed in a series of rooms in Somerset House, plates of Kishk Akhdar (fermented yogurt and bulgur), Huwairna (fermented turnip tops) and Adas Medames (crushed lentils with tomato and onion) were brought to the table, accompanied by hard to source Palestinian wines. The atmosphere was overwhelmingly convivial and joyful, but balanced by the underlying seriousness of the issue that has brought us all together. As we ate, Sami spoke about the genesis of Boustany and his friendship with Vivien, who then spoke eloquently, passionately and emotively about her work with farmers and food producers in Palestine.

I recently followed up with Sami on a Zoom call to find out more about his food journey, his relationship to his homeland and why he feels, in common with Vivien, that Palestinian food sovereignty is essential for the survival of their culture.