In her second piece for Marmalade + Kindness, London-based food writer, Angela Zaher, explores how grief has touched our lives since the beginning of the pandemic and the how the simple act of baking bread may offer a way of making sense of it.
Over the past year or so, several of my close friends, as well as my husband, sadly lost a parent. It is testament to the age we are getting to (let’s just say mid-forties) and the age we live in; COVID-19 has tragically claimed many before their time directly or indirectly. I am no stranger to that type of loss, my father passed away when I was 18 years old and my mother when I had just turned 40. The loss of a parent is unhinging, like a boat that has drifted away from its anchor and is at danger of being lost at sea. However, grief is particularly personal and we all experience it differently, which sometimes makes it hard to know what to say or do to bring comfort to those going through the raw pain of it.
In many cases, due to COVID-19 restrictions, I could not even see my friends to give them sympathy so I turned to my kitchen for inspiration. From my childhood in Lebanon, there was one bake that was more evocative of comfort and spirituality than any others: Holy Bread. Called “qurban” in Arabic, this sweet, aromatic bread was widely used in churches in the Middle East to celebrate Catholic religious occasions. In particular, it was handed out at mass to mark the 40 day anniversary of the passing of a loved one. In almost every culture, a community brings food to the bereaved in the days or months after a death; it is an edible message of sympathy.
At times when we may not be able to express our condolences in words, food does the talking without awkwardness and with eloquence and love.
I remembered how as a child, the thought of sampling the holy bread at the Eucharist made me leap out of bed early and get dressed in my Sunday best, ready to go long before my teenage siblings were unwillingly dragged out of their bed. The small (typically 12 cm in diameter), round, flattish loaves would be split up into bite-sized pieces for each parishioner. I am sure that attendance spiked on those Sundays when qurban was offered. I watched as people queued solemnly in line to receive this bread, head bowed, hands clasped together and most likely their taste buds salivating. Soon, bakeries cottoned on to how popular holy bread was and it became available to buy and be enjoyed by people of all or no faith.
The unique flavour of this bread comes from mastic. Mastic is a resin obtained from the mastic tree, it is also known as the tears of Chios, being traditionally produced on that Greek Island. Even though tears are hugely appropriate in the context in which I was using them, they are more like little pebbles and I love using my pestle and mortar to grind them in order for them to reveal their full tempting and evocative aroma. Mastic is widely used in desserts across the Middle East and has an intense flavour, like aniseed (but it does retain bitterness even when cooked so needs to be used with caution). It is known for aiding digestion and in my opinion, there is no more delicious digestif than the Greek liqueur Mastika.
As I prepared the dough for the qurban, I thought of how baking has over the years helped me deal with loss. My mother loved being in the kitchen cooking for her family and friends. Our house in Beirut was always filled with delicious food scents and people. When she passed away a few years ago, I made a hasty trip to Lebanon to attend her funeral and when I came back to London found it extremely difficult to pick up from where I had left off, resume the normal activities of daily life and my work and domestic duties. I felt so remote from her, I feared a loss of connection, I felt guilty for my lack of feeling at times. What I believe saved me from bottling up my grief, or letting it paralyse me completely, was my cooking.
My skills were quite basic but I just had a go, again and again, trying to recreate the tastes of my childhood.
After a while, I felt the burden of grief slowly start to lift and at the same time, I regained a sense of closeness to my mum. I realised that what mattered most to me was keeping her memory alive for me and for her grandsons, my two sons who were only two and four years old at the time. On her first birthday after she had passed, the boys and I spent the whole day in the kitchen, covered in flour, rolling out dough to make manakeesh, Lebanese style pizza which is topped with zaatar, a spice mix of oregano, thyme, sumac, sesame seeds and salt mixed with olive oil and traditionally eaten at breakfast. I felt her presence with us in the kitchen. I like to think that she would have felt some pride watching her once unruly and temperamental teenage daughter bake in her honour and share her legacy with her grandsons. Baking something for my mother on her birthday in August has become an annual tradition. This year it will be qurbans in the hope that I will have perfected them by then.
I am not the only one to draw comfort from the kitchen. Cooking as a way to deal with grief is now recognised as an innovative form of therapy, called Culinary Grief Therapy [1] and studies have shown that engaging in this type of interactive cognitive behaviour may reduce or prevent mental health issues related to complicated grief [2]. A support group was set up in Chicago in 2016 by one of the authors of that study to help widowed people cope with cooking for one [3]. The testimonials from those who attended the workshops are evidence of how healing food can be. One man who lost his wife said that she used to prepare a large Sunday meal for the whole family and even when their kids were grown up, they would all come over for that meal. When she passed, given that he had never cooked, that tradition fell away and he felt so bad not only over her loss but about an increasing remoteness from his children. Joining in one of the workshops gave him the confidence to start cooking (and helped him connect with others in the same situation) and before long, he was able to have all his children and grandchildren over on Sundays and reinstate this tradition.
The qurbans were not an instant success. I made several batches, trying out many different recipes I found online before achieving something that I could inflict on someone who is not a family member. This was meant to give comfort to a grieving friend after all. But, I was determined and felt that it’s particularly important not to give up on holy bread. Finally, I ended up developing my own recipe. I found that mixing the flour with ground almonds gave a tighter, more pleasing texture, especially for dunking in coffee the next day (or in Vin Santo for an even holier experience). Traditionalists may baulk at how different these are from what used to be served in church and the lack of a religious stamp, but for me, I feel I have captured their essence.
I was finally able to give them to friends as a way to tell them that I was sorry for their loss.
You don’t have to be religious or grieving to revel in the loveliness of these breads. They are perfect for breakfast, elevenses, mid afternoon pick me up or late night cravings. If you are not a dunker, they taste wonderful the next day toasted, spread with a little butter. Mastic and Mahlab (a spice that has the flavour of bitter almonds) can be found in Middle Eastern, Greek and Iranian food shops but Mahlab is not essential as the almond flavour comes through from the ground almonds. I have tried them with cinnamon and/or cardamom instead and both work just as well, depending on your taste. Undoubtedly, they are at their best when eaten warm, fresh from the oven.
QURBAN “Holy Bread”
Makes 8-10 mini round loaves of qurban.
INGREDIENTS:
3g instant action yeast (approx ½ sachet)
3g Mastic pebbles
½ tsp Mahlab (optional, you can use cinnamon or nutmeg instead)
400g plain flour
100g ground almonds
200g caster sugar
100ml vegetable oil
100ml orange blossom water
100ml warm water
For the glaze (optional): 2 tbl melted butter and 1 tsp orange blossom water
TO MAKE:
Mix the yeast in a mug with 30ml warm water and ¼ tsp caster sugar, stir well leave it to rest for ten minutes until frothy.
With a pestle and mortar, grind the mastic pebbles with ½ tsp Mahlab, or cinnamon or cardamom (or any combination thereof).
In a free standing mixer bowl, add the flour, sugar and the mastic mix, combine using a fork.
Add the yeast, vegetable oil, orange blossom water and put the bowl into the mixer stand. Combine this mixture using the dough hook and slowly add the warm water until it comes together. You might not need all the water. Use a spatula to scrape all the flour from the side of the bowl. The mixture will look quite wet and more like a thick cake batter but don’t worry. Knead the dough on a fast setting for five minutes. Can of course be made without a mixer, just use a large bowl and do the kneading by hand, for about ten minutes, but in the bowl as the dough is very wet and sticky.
Cover and leave in a warm place to prove for 2-3 hours.
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius (fan). Line two baking trays with baking paper.
Tip the dough out onto a generously floured surface and knock the air back. Roll the dough into a sausage shape, divide into 8 equal pieces. Using a rolling pin, roll out each piece until it’s roughly 10-12cm in diameter.
Transfer the qurbans onto the baking trays, if you have a wooden stamp use in the middle of the bread (I have a plastic stamp of a snowflake which I use instead, not authentic but fun). Bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes until golden brown. If making the glaze, brush the top of each bread as soon as they come out of the oven.
***
[1] Culinary Grief Therapy: Cooking for One Series” Heather L. Nickrand and Cara M. Brook (Journal of Palliative Medicine, Vol 20, No.2).
[2] Complicated grief is when a bereaved person, after a period of time and having gone through the various stages of grief, is not able to move on and continues to struggle to cope.
[3] Visit culinarygrieftherapy.com for further details on this group.
Angela Zaher is a food writer, homemaker and ex- solicitor. She was born in Beirut, Lebanon but has lived in Brussels and in Hong Kong making her home in London for over 20 years. Her two passions are food and writing and she has been dedicated to both since leaving the legal profession. She believes that you can eat your way to good physical and mental health.
To connect visit:
Instagram: @angela_zaher
