Remembering Teta Julia and Her Recipe for Christmas Cake

My grandmother Julia was the principal inspiration for my ardour for cooking as a boy. I spent loads of time at her home, absorbing her busy every day routine. There would at all times be attractive smells and a frenzy of exercise within the kitchen as meals had been ready, usually for company. In the meantime, farmers would name instantly on the entrance door to supply their seasonal specialities: ripe prickly pears, watermelons from Jenin, fats courgettes (zucchini), and finger-length aubergines (eggplant) from Battir.

The times began early, and sometimes by 10 within the morning, my grandmother can be patiently ready on the terrace for a pal to attend an occasion on the Arab Girls Union, the place she was one of many founders. To my delight, ladies coming to see her from neighbouring villages would usually bear tasty items: candy dibs (grape molasses) from Khirbet Beit Zakariyyah or honey from Ubeidiya, and salty laban jameed (salted and dried yogurt) from native Bedouin communities.

As Christmas approached, my grandparents’ house would bustle excitedly with vitality. My grandmother had been raised in a house the place Christmas traditions had been massively essential. They’d been ingrained in her by her father, my great-grandfather, Mattia Kattan, whom she described compellingly in her e book, Lest We Neglect. Sadly, he died earlier than I used to be born, however I appreciated that he was the well-traveled, multilingual son of a former mayor of Bethlehem, a service provider with retailers in Amman, Haifa, and Jerusalem, who was devoted to his giant household. He was the loving father of eight women—an completed lineup which included each my grandmothers—and one boy. 

My grandmother took big satisfaction in our metropolis and at all times strove to protect its tales and recollections for locals in addition to its many worldwide guests. This will clearly be seen within the Beituna al-Talhami Museum, which was established by the Arab Girls Union underneath her administration and thru her file of group work. Lengthy earlier than December 24, Christmas Eve for our Catholic household, she and her associates can be knitting sweaters to be despatched as Christmas items to Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli jails. There have been at all times charitable fundraising actions and Christmas events for the much less well-off in our group to arrange, too. 

My grandmother instilled in all her grandchildren the values of solidarity and philanthropy. My siblings, cousins, and I had been at all times inspired to consider these much less lucky than ourselves, notably within the run-up to Christmas. We might make small donations from our pocket cash to native charities, together with the orphanages, in order that the youngsters cared for there may have a Christmas present and a festive meal.

Our household’s Christmas preparations have at all times begun in earnest on December 1, the beginning of Creation, which additionally occurs to be my birthday. From this date on, Christmas bushes and decorations are on show, Christmas carols may be legitimately performed, and stacks of Julia’s wealthy Christmas cake begin build up. Funnily sufficient, the recipe for the cake was merely based mostly on an previous Betty Crocker one, which Teta tailored to incorporate domestically sourced Palestinian substances, including further cinnamon and nutmeg, moist dates, fleshy dried apricots, and figs. All through December, Teta’s house can be crammed with this Christmassy scent. Her oven was on nonstop—and the kitchen was transformed right into a mini manufacturing line for her muffins.

I do not know what number of Christmas muffins Teta would make every year, however it was so much. Most had been devoured or handed out to family members simply earlier than Christmas. My principal process as an enthusiastic younger kitchen assistant was to cut the dried fruit after which coat the items in flour earlier than including them to the cake combine so they didn’t simply stoop right down to the underside of the baking tin. Typically I’d even be trusted to put out all of the lengthy rectangular cake pans and line them with parchment paper whereas my grandmother and her common kitchen helper bought the cake combine prepared. Lastly, because the muffins slowly baked, we’d sit expectantly within the kitchen, keeping track of them. When my grandfather got here house from work, the irresistible aroma would at all times put a smile on his face.

These days, the Israeli state’s development of the segregation wall has marred one of many principal highlights of Christmas celebrations—the procession of church officers from Jerusalem’s Previous Metropolis to the Nativity Church in Bethlehem. However once I was rising up, giant crowds of joyful Christians, largely from Bethlehem and the encompassing areas, would collect alongside the path to welcome the procession, with the primary clusters at Mar Elias Monastery, on a hill on the fringe of the town, and at Rachel’s Tomb, the place many notables would wait. As my grandparents’ home was effectively situated alongside the route inside Bethlehem, we’d congregate there within the entrance backyard on December 24 to greet the Roman Catholic patriarch who heads the convoy and watch the scouts and horses who accompanied him. My grandparents—who had shut relations with the church—had been at all times able to salute the patriarch of the day. After he had handed, we went inside for a grand lunch.

Within the weeks main as much as this occasion, the dialog would revolve round whom to ask to the lunch. My grandmother, the beneficiant hostess, hated to go away anybody out and at all times secretly invited further company. She would additionally welcome those that had not been invited as we packed inside. By now, the exquisitely embellished Christmas tree can be prepared with items wrapped for everybody in order that for us kids, this was at all times an exhilarating time. Regardless of in depth conversations among the many household about what our lunch ought to contain, the menu was often roughly the identical. 

The appetizers had been invariably sfiha (meat-filled flatbreads), sambousek (crispy meat pies), kibbeh (spiced meat and bulgur wheat), and a neighborhood salad.

Then my grandmother would make what she known as “Oriental rice,” on which she lavished minced meat (floor meat), festive grilled chestnuts, almonds, and pine nuts. This might accompany roasted turkey and a roasted lamb shank in addition to her well-known glazed carrots. Some years, she would go for an entire roasted lamb filled with rice and meat. It was at all times an epic meal. On these events, a lot of my family would shrink back from the top of the lamb, however Teta would minimize this and quietly serve it to these of us privileged to know the worth of the delicacy and generally to others who had no thought what it was. I’d contentedly tuck into the mind meat, bone marrow, and every other elements of the lamb, leaving others to benefit from the leaner however, for my part, much less tasty meat.

I’m eternally grateful that I had such distinctive grandparents and that I used to be in a position to spend a lot time with Teta Julia. She taught me about each Palestinian spice and herb, and most significantly, about Palestinian hospitality, the love of Bethlehem, and the significance of resilience.

Teta’s Christmas lunches, her pièces de résistances, would at all times finish together with her Christmas cake. We had been solely allowed to style it for the primary time on Christmas Eve. There was a ritual by which she took a cake out of the fridge, the place it will have been saved for 3 weeks, for us to slice it collectively. After a lot anticipation, that first style was at all times a memorable second.

After Teta Julia handed away, your complete household was in denial, however Christmastime was the toughest, the time when her absence was most painful. It took me a number of years to appreciate that I may bake her Christmas cake and share it with the household in her reminiscence, as a tribute to her.

A wonderful Christmas Eve lunch would taper off moderately than finish. Then we’d sit round, our stomachs full, sipping Arabic espresso, and our consideration would start to shift to midnight mass. Whereas a lot of the household can be heading to the Nativity Church, the scramble for the sought-after tickets, which had usually begun within the autumn, was off-putting for my grandmother. As an alternative, together with my grandfather and fogeys, she most popular to move to the chapel at Bethlehem College, one other eminent native establishment which she had helped to discovered.