The Hammouds’ Kitchen has a new website

19 Mar

From Ammar and Samar

We cook Syrian food and food from the Middle East and we started our business three years ago.

We have a new website for The Hammoud’s Kitchen. Visit it and, if offered the chance, download the app onto your phone, for our menu of homecooked food.

We would love to cook for you and have many customers. We appreciate it when people give positive feedback on the quality of our food. The food is very different. It's hard to describe because the spices are different to the ones used in the UK. This difference is what people love.

We are cooking to share our family, history and food and to form friendships through food. We know many people through the business and it has improved our language.

At home in Syria we lived in Damascus. But we went to Maaloula during the summer months. It was cooler and more comfortable there. We would return to our village. A place very like Shaftesbury. It was small and the weather was good. Everybody in our village knew each other well. The village was high on the side of a mountain, there were so many fresh vegetables and fruits on the farm, our own house and our neighbours would speak Aramaic and we felt like brothers and sisters.

The town of Maaloula is actually Christian and we shared our festivals and our lives. In Damascus, we lived five kilometres from the centre. We loved the city life of shops and markets. The specialist shops, like vintage shops, confectioners and ice cream makers. Our flat had a little garden.

We had to flee from Syria to Lebanon in 2013. At the time of leaving Syria, our youngest child was six months old, our other child was 4. Life in Lebanon was very difficult. We had a good first year, but things changed. We did not feel welcome there. If we needed work, we couldn't because we were Syrian. Schools were poor. The teachers were less skilled and Ammar’s health deteriorated and prevented him from working. The Lebanese authorities wanted to return refugees to Syria, and therefore, we began to feel fearful of the police and army. We feared returning to Bashar al-Assad and his regime and we began to feel there was no future. We left Lebanon, at the end of 2017 and came here on the UN and UK Syrian Refugee Resettlement Programme.

Ammar is the person that cooked at first and has done the teaching. Ammar learned to cook in the Army and from living with friends before his marriage. Samar learned to cook from her husband because as a child, she would never like to be in the kitchen with her mother. She would tell her mother, ‘I could buy everything from a shop. Why would I need to make it?’ So, she came to her marriage only able to cook rice, noodles and eggs. When Sammar would speak with Ammar’s mother, his mother would ask. ‘Can you cook with Vine Leaves? Can you make kibbeh?’ And Samar would return to Ammar and ask for the recipes. Ammar still gets the recipes from his mother. When Samar told her mother that she was cooking kibbeh and using vine leaves, her mother was surprised. Ammar has always been by her side to help her. ‘He gives me notes about how to cook and we work together. I'm not able to make all the sweets I want to make yet, but we can make baklava and the most marvelous pancakes of every sort.’

Food is, of course, part of our life. It's important for the food to be healthy, nutritious and for us to know how it was prepared. And to know that it is low sugar and low salt. Some days are special for food. Friday is a special day for breakfast. We have two to three special dishes: keshk batata, falafel, foul medames, with oil and mint and cumin and cucumber. At Eid. there is also special food. Food is such a pleasure and a joy.

Life in England is very different to life in Syria. In Syria, we had about seven families all around us and we lived like a family. We dined together. We played together and language was important. It was Aramaic, everybody spoke Aramaic. But here we find the government is fair. We're treated equally, There are rules, and the laws are clear. Government is so important. It's so balanced here. In Syria, there are prejudices and preferences for some groups. In Lebanon, it was like being in the fire of hell, but the UK feels like heaven.

Not being able to work meant that we didn't feel like part of the community until we started our business. And we love to share the food of the Middle East. In Shaftesbury we feel very welcome here. We're very happy and people are very kind. We get support from friends, the community and the Council.

Samar, ‘When I first came to the UK I couldn't open my suitcase for a month because I wanted to leave. It wasn't England. It was just that I wasn't home. But it was the volunteers that came and sat with us and spoke with us and made us less frightened that meant that one day I could open my bag.’ The Shaftesbury Refugee Group was like a bridge that made it possible for us to live here. They provided all the support. Even when I was in hospital to give birth, it was like having my mother with me. I was made to feel like they are our family and not volunteers.

We would love to thank everybody, the volunteers, our English teacher, the Council, Citizens Advice for all the things that they did. It's almost impossible to find words to thank them. We would love to help other people coming to the UK, refugees, to cook for them and have a first meal to help them.

https://www.hammoudskitchen.co.uk