Ripe Figs by Yasmin Khan

I joined a monthly cookbook group through Food 52 a few months before the pandemic set in, but it wasn't until my spouse and I were cooking 100% of the food we ate that we really dove in with both feet. The experience got me back to using cookbooks rather than the internet for my recipes, which improved the range and quality of the meals that I prepared. It has just been recently that I have started to read the cookbook before cooking out of it, and this is a good one to approach in that way. Ripe Figs is a book about resilience as much as recipes. The author, Yasmin Khan has travelled around the Eastern Mediterranean in search of stories about food from refugees who have landed on its shores. While exploring their cuisine and the dishes they have brought with them in their to recreate in their new environment, Khan considers the question of borders, migration, loss, and the role that food plays in helping people negotiate these life-changing events. The recipes are vegetable forward for the most part, and the index is well organized, and categorized around vegan versus vegetarian versus gluten free. There is a cultural context and a story to go with each of them, and center on small dishes and food as a way to build social structure and broader ties. This gives the book even more poignancy and amplifies the ways in which lives are disrupted and changed by events outside of our control.