The chefs that Moushabeck has assembled are as impressive as they are diverse. Persian chef and cookbook author Najmieh Batmanglij gives her recipe for pomegranate and walnut khoresh; jollof rice comes from Nigerian pop-up cook and activist Tunde Wey ; Kerala shrimp stew from Indian chef and restaurateur Anita Jaisinghani; a dish of lamb fatteh from Lebanese chef Naji Boustany; a simple yet remarkable dish of turmeric shrimp with curry leaves from Malaysian chef Mei Chau; beef noodle soup from Charles Phan, the Vietnamese chef behind the celebrated Slanted Door restaurants in San Francisco; scallop aguachile from the celebrated Mexican chef Enrique Olvera — and many, many more, including the Jamaican musician Ziggy Marley, whose own cookbook came out in 2016.
There are also, purposefully, dishes from chefs whose immigration status we may take more for granted: French culinary legend Daniel Boulud, whose New York restaurants have helped define American cuisine; Australian chef Curtis Stone, who has two restaurants in Los Angeles; British-born chef April Bloomfield and French chef Dominique Ansel, both of whom have pivotal New York restaurants and who recently opened restaurants in L.A.
It’s a tremendously effective project from Interlink, which was founded in 1987 by Moushabeck’s father Michel Moushabeck, a Palestinean who immigrated to the U.S. from Beirut. Among Interlink’s previous cookbooks are “The Aleppo Cookbook: Celebrating the Legendary Cuisine of Syria,” and “Persepolis: Vegetarian Recipes from Persia and Beyond,” as well as other titles showcasing the cuisines of Mexico, Ireland, Italy and the Middle East, among others. “The Immigrant Cookbook” continues this multicultural project and ups the game some: A minimum of $5 from the sale of each book will be donated to the American Civil Liberties Union to support the ACLU Civil Rights project.
The message of the cookbook is thus clear, immediate and pragmatic, yet it’s also subtle, even lyrical. With an epigraph from Kahlil Gibran’s “To Young Americans of Syrian Origin,” a simple table of contents (appetizers, soups, etc.), beautiful pictures from Ricarius Photography — and straightforward, simply written recipes that work — “The Immigrant Cookbook” would be a welcome addition to any cook’s library. What sets it on the top shelf, so to speak, is the multiplicity of voices, techniques and flavors and also the context — which is something that often gets lost in the tumult of noisy kitchens or a noisy political arena.
“Almost all of the foods we think of as American specialties can be traced to immigrants who brought or adapted them: pizza, bagels, pretzels, apple pie, waffles, hot dogs, tacos, hamburgers and the ice cream cone all originate from immigrants — from Europe, Latin America, Africa, Asia or the Middle East,” Moushabeck writes from her Brooklyn home in her introduction.
What makes American cuisine great is those who brought their food — ingredient list and all — to this country, then and now and into the long table of the future.
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