Keeping you informed about Palestinian cultural heritage research, and our work here at the Archive

Keeping you informed about Palestinian cultural heritage research, and our work here at the Archive

Monday, August 25, 2014

Palestine Poster Project Archives accepted for review by UNESCO's Memory of the World program

“Salma” by Sliman Mansour (1988)
published by Roots
Palestine Poster Project Archives website
source

We were absolutely delighted to hear that the Palestine Poster Project Archives has been accepted for formal review by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization’s Memory of the World program. The UNESCO program’s International Register inscribes library and archival holdings of “world significance and outstanding universal value.” The nomination form states:
"Posters in the Liberation Graphics Collection representing a key era in the evolution and maturation of Palestine poster art, providing primary documentary data on the contemporary history of Palestine and serving as an extraordinary source of inspiration for artists from a diverse range of geographic locales, political affiliations, nationalities, and aesthetic perspectives. The Palestine poster genre is unique in world art and a much overlooked feature of Palestinian cultural heritage "
It is, indeed. As Dan Walsh, curator and owner of the Archives, says in an interview on the Mondoweiss website:
"these posters ... create a rich and textured portrait of Palestine that’s very different from the caustic and superficial stereotypes with which Palestinians were burdened subsequent to the Nakba. In these works of art we see keys and kaffiyehs, oranges and olives, horses and doves, poetry and embroidery, all mobilized to tell a story. These and other symbols, icons, and traditions of Palestinian identity are celebrated, preserved, and legitimated in the posters. 
"So the posters are a real teaching tool. Viewed collectively, they enable Palestinians to learn more about their own history and for non-Palestinians to undo the hasbara that has mis-educated them. It’s a source for national pride"
We're so pleased to see this nomination.  The Palestine Poster Project Archives and the Palestine Costume Archive share many things. Both archives came into being after academic research revealed the need. Both are staffed by volunteers. Both operate with severely limited resources. Both are committed to education. Both acquire specific forms of Palestinian cultural heritage. Both of us have collection / research areas which overlap - we both acquires posters featuring traditional Palestinian costume and embroidery iconography. Our own archive has a large works on paper collection, with a small but significant poster collection that always features in our traveling exhibitions, although sadly we lost about half our poster collection when our traveling exhibition "Symbolic Defiance: Palestinian costumes and embroideries since 1948" was "mislaid" at LAX on it's way to MESA, after being displayed at WOCMES.

We also like that the Palestine Poster Project Archives shares our frustration with Palestinian cultural material being mislabeled in archives and libraries and museums - Dr Walsh mentions this in the You Tube video below, which was a talk he gave at the Palestine Fund:


We know how hard everyone at the Palestine Poster Project Archives works, and we think it would be wonderful if that hard and very important work was acknowledged in this way :)


Here's the rest of that interview, published on August 16, 2014:
In early August, the nomination of a major collection of posters from the Palestine Poster Project Archives was accepted for formal review by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization’s Memory of the World program. The UNESCO program’s International Register inscribes library and archival holdings of “world significance and outstanding universal value.” 
The nominated work, the Liberation Graphics Collection of Palestine Posters, is the first documentary heritage resource ever nominated by the state of Palestine for inscription to the Memory of the World. The review process takes about a year to complete. If inscribed, the Palestine posters will join a register that includes the Bayeux Tapestry, the Book of Kells, the Phoenician Alphabet, the Gutenberg Bible, Karl Marx’s personally annotated manuscript of Das Kapital, and hundreds of other historically significant documents.
Aside from the prospect of inscription into this prestigious register, the nomination itself is a watershed event for Palestinian art, culture, and history. Its significance is addressed in the following exchange between Dan Walsh, curator and owner of the Archives, and Catherine Baker, a member of the Archives’ advisory board. 
CB: Dan, describe the collection that has been nominated.

DW: The Palestine Poster Project Archives includes paper and digital images of almost 10,000 Palestine posters created by more than 1,900 artists from 72 countries. It’s growing by the day, both through acquisition of older posters and the addition of newly created works. UNESCO’s Memory of the World only includes defined and complete resources, so what was proposed for inscription is our core collection. This is a body of 1,700 posters published from the mid-sixties through the mid-nineties. They were produced during a key period in Palestinian history commencing around the time of the Six-Day War of 1967 and the 1968 battle of Al Karameh and continuing through the first intifada. The posters reveal how Palestinians organized and asserted themselves in response to the loss of land and the resulting displacement and diaspora. 
CB: Who made these posters? 
DW: Hundreds of Palestinian artists are represented. Some produced their work at locations within Palestine and others contributed from points around the globe. Palestinian artists whose names Mondoweiss readers might recognize include Ismail Shammout, Kamal Boullata, and Sliman Mansour, but there are many others.  The posters also represent a wide range of Palestinian publishers, from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine to lesser known groups such as the General Union of Palestinian Plastic Artistsand, of course, the artists as publishers themselves. 
A good many of the posters were created in solidarity by non-Palestinians. To name a few: Marc Rudin from Switzerland, whose early solidarity with Palestinians earned him the honorific Jihad Mansour; the Italian comics illustrator Elfo; and the Italian set designer Elizabetta Carboni. There are many international artists who created Palestine solidarity posters in their early years and have subsequently enjoyed prominent careers in the arts. A number of the international posters in the Liberation Graphics Collection were self-published by the artists, others were published specifically for exhibits such as Palestine: A Homeland Denied, and a substantial portion were published by organizations outside of Palestine; as one example, the Organization of Solidarity with the Peoples of Africa, Asia and Latin America. 
CB: What topics do these posters address? 
DW: This particular collection includes many about armed struggle, but other themes emerge as well. A 1982 poster quoting Yasser Arafat says: “This revolution is not merely a gun, but also a scalpel of a surgeon, a brush of an artist, a pen of a writer, a plough of a farmer, an axe of a worker.” These posters reflect that society-wide commitment to the revolution. Some are about a particular individual or group of Palestinians, and some are about events such as music festivals or cultural traditions such as sculpture and film.  We’ve got posters on the theme of return, literacy, voting, children’s theatre, refugehood, you name it. The joys and the challenges of Palestinian life are all represented here. 
CB: In a nutshell, what’s the big deal about this nomination? 
DW: Apart from the possibility of actual inscription in UNESCO’s Memory of the World register—which we hope will occur following the review process—the nomination itself brings world attention to a unique genre of posters that heretofore has been essentially unrecognized. 
CB: What do you mean by that? 
DW: Typically, posters related to Palestine have been archived by libraries and museums under all sorts of rubrics depending on who made them or where they were made. They’ve been catalogued under various terms such as Muslim, Arab, Middle East, Jewish, Israeli, Holy Land, Levant, and so on. This means that related posters were not readily available for unified analysis. We posted a definition of the Palestine poster at the Archives web site, and we included all posters that met that definition. When we did that, what emerged is a unique genre of tremendous breadth and scope. It’s a goldmine for artists, historians, and academics. There is simply nothing else out there like that in the poster tradition. 
CB: You’ve twice now called the Palestine poster a “unique genre.” On what grounds do you make this claim? 
DW: First of all, it’s the only political poster genre to make it from the street to the Internet. The other major poster genres of the mid-twentieth century— such as the posters of the Spanish Civil War, revolutionary Cuba, Nicaragua’s Sandinista movement, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the People’s Republic of China, Zionist colonialism—they’ve all faded away. Only the Palestine poster genre endured to the twenty-first century, seamlessly made the transition to the digital age, and continues to flourish. 
Another factor that makes the Palestine poster genre unique is the degree to which it has been suppressed, censored, banned, and forced underground. At the web site we have a whole special collection dedicated to this topic. 
But perhaps what is most unique about the Palestine poster genre is that it has survived virtually intact. After all, what is a poster but a piece of paper that’s plastered on a building, handed out at a concert, or taped to a dorm wall? It’s not meant to last; it’s ephemeral. But those 1,700 posters in the Liberation Graphics Collection were preserved because people kept them. People around the world participated in a spontaneous expression of salvage anthropology. They stored posters in their attic or in a roll under their bed or in the back of their artist’s studio. And eventually they contributed those posters to the Palestine Poster Project Archives. And they’re still doing that. Every month, it seems, somebody contacts me about some posters they picked up back when they were traveling or produced themselves a decade or four ago. And so since 2005, when we launched the web site, we’ve seen this narrative emerge. It’s like a documentary film in the making. Collectively, the people of Palestine and their friends are fleshing out an authentic history of contemporary Palestine. 
CB: Now I have to ask you to explain to Mondoweiss readers what you mean by “authentic history.” 
DW: The narrative presented by the Palestine posters is authentic in the sense that it is by, for and about Palestine and the Palestinians. No editors, no censors. Each poster reveals the attitudes, aspirations, and actions present at the moment of the poster’s creation. It’s unfiltered and it’s unrevised by later events. Collectively these posters carry incredibly useful primary data on Palestinian political, military, cultural, and social history.
I need to say here that, with some incredibly hardworking volunteers, we have been able to build a super-powerful Drupal site that is searchable six ways from Sunday. Academics enthuse over the capacity of the web site. I expect to see some impressive research coming out in the next few years based on this resource. 
CB: Talk to me more about the role of artists in forming the history of contemporary Palestine. 
DW: We’ve heard from the politicians, the journalists, and the diplomats and the academics—all the professionals in the so-called peace process industry. This genre elevates the voices of the artists. It allows us to hear people speaking directly to people. You look at these posters and you walk away with a completely different take on what Palestine is and what it means to be Palestinian, compared with what you get from talking heads through the news media. The great titles resonate: this quality is not something that can be fabricated, purchased, or faked. 
CB: Aesthetically, what excites you most about the posters in the nominated collection? 
To their credit, the early Palestinian political leadership never sought to centrally control either the internal or international production of posters. As a result, artists from around the world had the freedom to combine their own graphic styles and iconography with those of contemporary Palestine. The result is an astounding cross-fertilization. A good example is the 1979 poster, “Palestine: A Homeland Denied,” in which Thomas Kruze fuses the Danish woodcut style with the Palestinian iconography of white horse, dove, and embroidery. The posters also reveal how much the Palestinian cause has been taken to heart by political movements around the world. We see the joining of causes in, for example, Lazaro Abreu’s 1971 Cuban poster expressing solidarity with Syria, in which the flag of Palestine is included almost pro forma.  And we see solidarity reaching out in the other direction, in such posters as Solidarity With Students, People, and Youth of Vietnam.  
That’s a poster created by Hosni Radwan and published by the General Union of Palestinian Students. 
There’s one other thing I really love about these posters. It’s the remixing—the borrowing of iconography to make a new statement. Take for example the 1988 poster “From the Launching to the Uprising An Incredible Journey.” It was created by an unknown artist and published by an American artists’ collective called Roots. The poster features a photograph of a woman waving the Palestinian flag. That same year, artist Rene Castro re-mixed the image as a silkscreen for the poster, “In Celebration of the State of Palestine. ” 
CB: What’s the end goal with the UNESCO Memory of the World nomination? 
DW: As you well know, the Palestine Poster Project Archives is supported by nothing more than a collection of volunteers, both Palestinian and non-Palestinian. We’re doing the best we can with limited resources, but these posters need to be prepared for eventual acquisition by a Palestinian national institution capable of maintaining them in perpetuity. Ideally, this would be in Palestine itself. The Memory of the World nomination will hopefully help raise public consciousness and generate resources that will enable us to properly conserve these posters. 
But sharing these posters with the world has another benefit, because they create a rich and textured portrait of Palestine that’s very different from the caustic and superficial stereotypes with which Palestinians were burdened subsequent to the Nakba. In these works of art we see keys and kaffiyehs, oranges and olives, horses and doves, poetry and embroidery, all mobilized to tell a story. These and other symbols, icons, and traditions of Palestinian identity are celebrated, preserved, and legitimated in the posters. 
So the posters are a real teaching tool. Viewed collectively, they enable Palestinians to learn more about their own history and for non-Palestinians to undo the hasbara that has mis-educated them. It’s a source for national pride— the Palestinians’ gift to the world, really. In an article I wrote a few years ago, I called the Palestine poster genre the “visual equivalent of jazz.” 
CB: This is the first-ever nomination of a documentary heritage by the state of Palestine to UNESCO’s Memory of the World program. What other UNESCO programs recognize Palestinian art, culture and heritage? 
DW:  The poster nomination as a documentary heritage comes on the heels of two successful inscriptions of geographic sites by Palestine to UNESCO’s World Heritage List. The first was Church of the Nativity and the Pilgrimage Route in Bethlehem, inscribed in 2012; this was the first bid by Palestine after joining UNESCO. And in June of this year, the cultural landscape of southern Jerusalem, Battir, was also inscribed on the World Heritage List, after an emergency nomination that Palestine submitted in face of the threat posed by extension of the separation wall. All this UNESCO activity is raising the cultural prestige of Palestine, which is a welcome development.
More Info:

Wednesday, August 20, 2014

Practicing costume / textile identification skills


A lot of the work we do here at the Palestine Costume Archive is identifying costumes and textiles. We do this for lots of reasons. We might be asked by a diaspora Palestinian family about garments or cultural material in their family. We might be asked by a museum to confirm details of an item they are hoping to acquire or items on a checklist for a forthcoming exhibition, or an auction house wanting to list an item for auction.  We might be asked to help people organizing Palestinian cultural events like fashion parades.

Whatever the reason we are always happy to help because these days a lot of cultural material that is not Palestinian - especially in countries close to Palestine (one example being Sinai bedouin garments) - is getting labeled Palestinian out in the diaspora. We're always grateful that the people contacting us have taken the time to check.

We've been using social media to help familiarize people - not only Archive friends / staff who need practice with identification tools, but others out there with less knowledge.

A couple of days ago we posted the photo at the top of this post of an item in our collection on Facebook and asked Archive staff and friends to identify it.  We chose this particular one because we wanted something light hearted. We provided a couple of clues:
"it wasn't Palestinian, it was acquired in Damascus and it always creates amusement when we display it."
Twenty of you dropped us a line.  Ten got it right.  We're impressed. Those who didn't - don't worry about getting it wrong. This is all about practicing your skills. And you all came up with excellent suggestions, especially those of you who thought the garment might be a Sinai Desert bedouin headveil. This was a very good guess, because we have several Southern Sinai bedouin headveils with very similar sequined decoration in and on loan to our collection. You can see two of these displayed flat on the wall in the photo below of our traveling exhibition "Secret Splendours: women's costume in the Arab world":

Sinai Desert bedouin costumes on display
in the Archive's traveling exhibition
"Secret Splendours: women's costume in the Arab world"

Several even feature red sequins - here's one in storage, we've just pulled the archival paper back so you can see:

Sinai Desert bedouin headveil
in storage
Palestine Costume Archive collection

So seriously, well done :)

The clue to putting it all together was in our final clue - as one of you wrote "your "always creates amusement when we display it" gives it away lol".  Here's the entire garment:

Black and scarlet sequined Syrian lingerie
Palestine Costume Archive collection

If you are wondering at this point why on earth we are collecting underwear then you are in for a treat - it's Syrian lingerie and that's always over the top and very special :)

Black and scarlet sequined Syrian lingerie - detail
Palestine Costume Archive collection

"Forthright displays of the some world's kinkiest "leisure wear" have long been a feature of Syrian souks - though many tourists don't notice the crotchless knickers and PVC French maid outfits among the more traditional inlaid backgammon sets and textiles. 
"It stems from the Syrian tradition for brides-to-be to be given a trousseau of exotic underwear - sometimes dozens of items - usually by girlfriends, aunties and cousins, to add spice to their wedding nights, honeymoons and beyond..."
The Archive has three sets of late 20th century Syrian lingerie acquired in Suq al Hamidiya, Damascus.  

Pink heart Syrian lingerie
Palestine Costume Archive collection

As Martin Asser points out:
"There's a whole street off the historic Hamadiyeh Souk selling this genre of clothing - all outfits manufactured in Syria, some that Madonna herself might blush to wear, all showing bawdy creativity and a wicked sense of humour"
 Asser notes that according to Rana Salam and Malu Halasa who published "The Secret Life of Syrian Lingerie: Intimacy and Design" in 2008:
"there are more than 200 little tiny factories that manufacture these fast changing lingerie models, from feathers to ringing mobiles to actual candies “embedded” into the panties. Stuff like this, pretty unique in its genre, at least for Western tastes standards"
'The Secret life of Syrian Lingerie'
source

Here's an article about the book by Susannah Tarbush:
"When Malu Halasa and Rana Salam visited the souqs and shops of Damascus and Aleppo during a visit a couple of years ago, they were surprised by the apparent contradiction between the unusually audacious and playful lingerie on display there and the relatively conservative society, in which so many women are veiled. Halasa and Salam soon decided to co-author a book, "The Secret Life of Syrian Lingerie: Intimacy and Design"...

"The colourful pages of the book are full of photographs of lingerie decorated with everything from birds, butterflies and feathers to fake scorpions, flowers and fur. Sequins, pearls, embroidery and tassels liberally adorn bra and panty sets. Some lingerie sets emit music, others vibrate or incorporate lights. Lingerie may be edible; in other cases it is hidden inside chocolates or eggs. There are crocheted one-piece body suits, and costumes influenced by belly-dancing gear. The lingerie often has a playfulness about it, with comic touches such as fake fur thongs which double as mobile phone holders.
'The Secret life of Syrian Lingerie'
source 
"​​In addition to photographs of the lingerie on display, the book has photographs of lingerie modelled by pale-skinned women, mostly East European. These pictures are from catalogues which are readily available in lingerie outlets, despite the taboo on the showing of explicit images of women in public....
'The Secret life of Syrian Lingerie'
source 
"Lingerie has become an essential part of the wedding trousseau: "If a groom doesn't buy the lingerie for his wife-to-be, the bride herself or her mother does, sometimes collecting up to thirty outfits for her wedding night." The essay is accompanied by Lebanese photographer Reine Mahfouz's photographs of lingerie factories, window displays and shops where veiled women buy lingerie from male assistants.
"Halasa asks Abdulhamid about Syria's reputation within the region for earthiness and raunchiness. He replies: "Syrian society tackles sexuality head-on and looks at it in a very direct manner, which some people might find strange because it is supposedly a conservative society." There is overt discussion of sexuality even in mixed gatherings of men and women. "Sometimes it doesn't matter whether the people are religious or not. Sexual jokes are common currency in Syrian society."
'The Secret life of Syrian Lingerie'
source 

​​"There is a double edge to his comments on the racy type of Syrian lingerie. On the one hand, "you're turning women into sex toys. They're not supposed to be sexually stimulating to other people, but at home, to the husband, they're supposed to provoke his sexuality and dress in the manner that will attract him and do whatever he says." But at the same time, "it gives women a lot of control. Women can use sexuality to manipulate men."  
"An idea stated by some of those quoted in the book is that a woman should entertain her husband at home, including dancing for him. Some claim that the Koran contains such an injunction. Abdulhamid says this is not the case, but that "thousands of prophetic traditions support these ideas about women." Certainly some Syrians consider that if a woman "entertains" her husband, this will keep him away from other women and prostitutes, and will reduce the risk that he will take a second wife...
​​"The Secret Life of Syrian Lingerie" may itself attract such criticisms. Interviews with women are interspersed with photographs of lingerie by Lebanese photographer Gilbert Hage, but many women turned down the request to be interviewed, or became angry when they saw examples of the lingerie. A woman in her sixties who declined to be interviewed declared: "Damascenes are proud of their city and culture. No one will talk to you." Another said: "Lingerie is such an embarrassing issue for Syrian women to talk about, and that's probably why it's called 'the secret life'."
"One interviewee pointed out that the type of lingerie highlighted in the book is only a small part of Syria's overall lingerie output, and is linked only to a small category of people. "There are subcultures in Syria, and subcultures everywhere else in the world that would be interested in this kind of lingerie, starting from Le Lido or Moulin Rouge." But another interviewee thought the lingerie is "almost done in a naive sweet innocent way. It's not sick or perverted."
'The Secret life of Syrian Lingerie'
source
"The interviewees often associated the "exotic" lingerie with a certain class or religion. One said: "The underwear makes me laugh so much. It is not sexy at all!" She considers it mirrors "the very old fashioned ideas about sexuality in the less educated classes of Syria." Another said that for Christians, the underwear is "nothing but embarrassing, old-fashioned fun; for Muslims it is something very normal – they not only accept it but also enjoy it. The more religious an area is, the more risqué the underwear becomes. I think that Muslim women have less freedom on the outside so to compensate they have more freedom on the inside." 
"The Secret of Life of Syrian Lingerie: Intimacy and Design" is one of the most unusual, even bizarre, books you are likely to see on the Arab world. It is surely the first book to probe an Arab culture via the medium of its female undergarments, and looks certain to arouse debate and controversy."
If you'd like to learn more or read the book if you can either purchase a copy online or borrow the copy in the Archive's Research Library if you are in Australia.

Thanks so much to everyone who took part in this costume / textile identification skills practice and congrats again to those who got it right. We learned lots and are looking forward to the next one :)

More Info:

Wednesday, August 13, 2014

Everything you ever needed to know about Musahkan

Zar Bakery + Cafe - Musakhan flat bread

"There are as many recipes for 
musakhan chicken as there are cooks" 

Way back in 2007 we posted our first "foodie" post, although we didn't know about food blogging at the time. The post was part discussion, part recipe - it featured our "diasporic adaptation" of Musakhan.

Back in 2007 there was very little online about Palestinian cuisine. The post was prompted by our interest in, and mandate to, document modern versions of traditional Palestinian culture.  The post began:

The Nassar Family's "Mousakhan with Game Hens"
photo source: Chronicle / Craig Lee
"Musakhan ( مسخّن in Arabic) (Palestinian chicken cooked in sumac and onions) recently featured in an American magazine article about a Palestinian Christian family, the Nassars, cooking for Easter. Traditional Musakhan is truly one of the best things you'll ever eat. It's beloved all over the Arab world because it tastes so good. Seriously! 
"What interested us about the recipe given in the article is that it provided an interesting example of diasporic adaptation. The Nassar family cooked the dish with game hens rather than chicken, and created individual "musakhan" serves (on small rounds of bread) rather than the traditional "wrapping" in bread. You can see the scrumptious looking results in the photo above. 
"We've seen - or eaten - other diasporic versions that incorporate spices like allspice and saffron. This family added paprika. Sumac by the way is a tart lemony flavored spice made from the ground dried berries of a bush that grows wild throughout the Middle East. Boneless chicken versions also exist. Some recipes grill the chicken rather than bake it. Some roast it with onions and then bake it wrapped in bread. The variations are endless but we reckon they probably all taste pretty good. 
"We thought we'd share the recipe for Musakhan that our director modified for cooking easily in the West. Our Palestinian great grandmothers would probably observe it with horror but we guarantee it tastes absolutely terrific, and provides an instant comfort food hit for any homesick Palestinian visitors. We are always begging her to make another one. It's incredibly simple to make...."
The rest is here.  It's still one of our most popular posts and we regularly gets requests for more "diasporic adaptation" recipes.  But that was 2007.  These days, in 2014, Palestinian cuisine has a much higher profile, with Palestinian restaurants, cook books, food bloggers, fair trade food products, online recipes etc increasing in number and popularity.

Which is all great news.  But had Musakhan come along for the ride, we sometimes wondered.  Did this much loved dish still exist in 21st century Palestinian homes, whether in Palestine or in the diaspora?  It was a terrible thought to think that a whole new generation of Palestinians might be growing up unaware of what is often called Palestine's "national dish".

The answer to this literally turned up on our plate when we visited a new Palestinian restaurant  Zar Bakery and Cafe in Canberra a couple of months ago:

Zar Bakery + Cafe - Musakhan flat bread

Scoffing Sam's wonderful modern version of Musakhan inspired us.

Zar Bakery + Cafe - Musakhan flat bread

We went back to the Archive that afternoon thinking an update on our 2007 post was overdue.  So over the last couple of weeks - wanting distraction from recent events in Palestine and yet still wanting to comfort ourselves with Palestinian culture -  we decided it was time to undertake some research. Time to see what recipes existed online, what Palestinian cookbooks authors and food bloggers had to say about the dish.

So we googled "Musakhan" - and the fun began.

We immediately became aware there was so much more information out there.  Back in 2007 Wiki's entry on Musakhan was only a couple of lines. Now these's quite a bit more info, although the entry reads like it's had a lot of different people editing it.  It begins:
"Musakhan (Arabic: مسخّن‎) is a Palestinian dish composed of roasted chicken baked with onions, sumac, allspice, saffron, and fried pine nuts served over taboon bread. 
"Palestinian cuisine are similar to the cuisine of Syria—especially in the Galilee. The dishes have been generally influenced by the rule of three major Islamic groups: the Arabs, the Persian-influenced Arabs (Iraqis) and the Ottoman Empire- (Turks).
"The dish is simple to make and the ingredients needed are easily obtainable, which may account for the dish's popularity. Many of the ingredients used: olive oil, sumac and pine nuts are frequently found in Palestinian cuisine. 
"Musakhan is a dish that one typically eats with one's hands. It is usually presented with the chicken on top of the bread, and could be served with soup. The term 'musakhan' literally means "something that is heated."
See what we mean? What's missing is an actual description of the traditional dish, to say nothing about contemporary versions.   One of our favorite descriptions of Musakhan comes from the Desert Candy blog:
 "Musakhan, which literally means "warmed," consists of chicken pieces and caramelized onions wrapped up in swaths of of flatbread and baked until the chicken falls off the bone and the bread absorbs all those good chicken juices ... When I once described this dish to a friend, she exclaimed, "bread-wrapped roast chicken, that sounds like a dream!" And indeed, it is excellent. The bread, which is soft and full of chickeny juices on the bottom and crisp and crackly no top, the deep flavor of caramelized onions, the fleck of sumac, the tender meat. It's the sort of weeknight comfort food you can eat all week long.."
 You need to head over to Wiki's general Palestinian cuisine page to find out more about it's origin:
"Musakhan is a common main dish that originated in the Jenin and Tulkarm area in the northern West Bank. It consists of a roasted chicken over a taboon bread that has been topped with pieces of fried sweet onions, sumac, allspice and pine nuts."
Middle Eastern Assocation - Musakhan
source

"Classic Palestinian Cookery" author Christiane Dabdoub Nasser agrees with this. Several bloggers who've posted recipes also mention this, but as most don't elaborate we wonder if they picked it up from Wiki.  The reason we wonder this is because Wiki's source for this was Institute for Middle East Understanding's "Palestinian Cuisine" page. When you go back and check this, it reads:
"One of the most distinctive Palestinian dishes, said to originate in the Northern West Bank, near Jenin and Tulkarms,  is musakhan — roasted chicken smothered in fried onions, pine nuts, and sumac (a dark red, lemony flavored spice), and laid over taboon - a flat bread that takes its name from the free-standing village ovens in which it is baked."
Note that "said to originate". We're not saying it didn't - after all Musakhan is a classic example of West Bank cuisine where meals can be "heavy and involve rice, flatbreads and roasted meats" and certainly as the blogger at Middle East Food puts it, "the city of Jenin is very well known for their delicious Musakhan dishes.".  It just worth pointing out it would be a nice topic for someone out there interested in this topic to do some further research, hint hint :)

One thing we do know for sure is that Musakhan did not originate amongst bedouin communities. We mention this because some chef authors and bloggers identify Musakhan as a bedouin dish. For examples Greg Malouf describes his dish "Musakhan spicy chicken baked in mountain bread with spinach, chickpeas and pine nuts" in his and Lucy Malouf's book "Saha: a chef's journey through Lebanon and Syria":
"This dish is based on a Bedouin recipe, in which chickens are cooked on bread with lots of sumac and bitter wild greens..."
But it's not bedouin.  Musakhan is of the felahin, the "peasants" as some writers put it (Clifford Wright:  "a favorite dish made by the peasants") from the villages.
Palestine Costume Archive collection

 A look at it's original ingredients confirms this, with the author of the recipe on WebGaza.net calling a meal of Musakhan "a symbol of self-sufficiency in rural Palestine. Its ingredients are available in any village house at minimum costs, making a delicious and healthy meal."  These ingredients, Mai Tamimi (now resident in Otago, New Zealand) observes:
"were readily at hand in the countryside: onions which grew in village gardens, olive oil from the trees around the village, the spice sumac, bread which was made at home, and chickens which foraged around the houses." 
Sawsan @ Chef in disguise elaborates:
"[Musakhan] is usually prepared during the olive oil pressing season to celebrate freshly pressed oil ... Musakhan is all about fresh, simple ingredients allowed to shine. Good olive oil, tangy sumac,a hint of spices, onions caramelized to the point of being sweet and tender, perfectly roasted chicken and fresh bread. Simple yet you have to taste it to see how a dish can be much more than the sum of its parts."
Dima Sharif writes that the dish was:
"originally ... prepared by peasants and farmers to kind of test and celebrate their produce - mainly Olive Oil."
Being historically linked to the olive oil harvest meant the dish often appeared at village and family celebrations.  Mai Tamimi ("Musakhan was often eaten at celebrations") and Sawsan @ Chef in disguise confirm this, noting how the dish was "usually prepared during the olive oil pressing season to celebrate freshly pressed oil but you can see it on the menu all year round in family gatherings and parties."

Dima A - Musakhan - Famous chicken dish
source

So has Musakhan survived into the 21st century? Absolutely.  We've always felt this was linked to it's simplicity, the quality of it's few ingredients and it's wonderful taste - for Palestinians just the smell of this dish cooking evokes all sorts of memories.  So it was nice to find that Palestinian food bloggers felt the same.  As Dima Sharif so evocatively writes in her terrific post "Musakhan - the heart of Palestinian cuisine":
"Musakhan is a very simple dish to prepare, that can definately be described as comfort food. For me, Musakhan means Grandma, roots, early childhood, and home. So for me it doesn't get any better"
We agree.  In contemporary Palestinian and Jordanian homes it is still served as a main dish.  However as Syrian Foodie notes, in Syria:
 "In Syria, Musakhan is fairly well known and frequently eaten dish although the Syrian version varies a lot from the Palestinian ancestor. The flavours remained the same but the cooking, ingredients and presentation has been refined in keeping with Syrian fondness with food finesse. Here goes thick Taboon bread and comes in paper-thin Saj bread. Chicken is shredded and Musakhan is served in individual portions.
"Musakhan is hardly ever eaten as a main dish in Syria. It is usually served as a side dish or part of a large spread in dinner parties and big family occasions. In coffee shops and restaurants Musakhan is usually served as a small snack dish you can munch on in the few hours you spending there smoking Argeeleh. Another very popular version of Musakhan is tiny small pastries stuffed with the chicken and sumac mixture and served as part of finger food buffet in parties."
Syrian Foodie
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"Tiny small pastries" versions of Musakhan would probably have appalled early 20th century Palestinians making the dish, because as Syrian Foodie points out "in it's original format Musakhan is a very rustic dish of layered bread, sumac and onion mixture and roasted chicken."  However one thing the Palestinian diaspora has done extremely well is to create almost endless different ways to combine those simple but tasty ingredients of olive oil, bread, sumac, onion and chicken!

We'd noted in our 2007 post:
"We've seen - or eaten - other diasporic versions that incorporate spices like allspice and saffron ... paprika ... Boneless chicken versions also exist. Some recipes grill the chicken rather than bake it. Some roast it with onions and then bake it wrapped in bread. The variations are endless but we reckon they probably all taste pretty good."
NestleFamily.com
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Since then a lot more personal recipe variations have appeared.  Before we get to those let's look at how ingredients have changed.

Some people keep their ingredients absolutely basic and traditional, sticking with the best quality possible olive oil, bread, chicken and sumac. Christiane Dabdoub Nasser writes in "Classic Palestinian Cookery" that for Musakhan "The key ingredient is the sumac, which you buy as whole grains unless you have a really reliable spice vendor.”  Sawsan @ Chef in disguise also stresses it's importance:
"Sumac is one of the main players in Musakhan, it is a spice that comes from the berries of the Rhus shrubs. The berries are dried and then ground to give a purplish deep red powder that is sour, slightly fruity and astringent. It is used in the middle eastern cuisine to add a sour, lemony taste to chicken, salads and salad dressings".
Bread is also a very important component of the dish, as well as an important component of Palestinian cuisine. As we noted in our post about Sam's restaurant Zar Cafe in Canberra:
"In Canberra we've been used to substituting store-bought pita bread for proper Palestinian bread, and that's a terrible thing. If you've ever tasted home made Palestinian bread you'll understand why. Wiki outlines the different traditional types of bread on their Palestinian cuisine page: 
"Palestinians bake a variety of different kinds of breads: they include khubzpita and markook and taboonKhubz is an everyday bread and is very similar to pita. It often takes the place of utensils; It is torn into bite size pieces and used to scoop various dips such as hummus or fulMarkook bread is a paper-thin unleavened bread and when unfolded it is almost transparent. Taboon receives its name from the ovens used to bake them."  
"But none of this gives you any idea at all of how Palestinian breads taste and smell and feel..." 
"Wiki continues: "Traditionally, Levantine women would bake dough in a communal oven in the morning, to provide their family with their daily bread needs, and would prepare smaller portions of dough with different toppings for breakfast at this time. " 
"This (either late 19th or early 20th century) photo from the American Colony Collection shows a woman probably from the Jerusalem region, waiting to pick up her bread from her local village oven taboun
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Traditionally 'Taboon Bread' was used in Musakhan.

Musakhan on Taboon bread
source - Wiki

Dima Sharif writes that  Taboon Bread was:
"a thick and bubbled bread that peasants used to prepare at home. The bread is supposed to be simple to prepare using the 'Traditional Oven' available at most houses back in the day. They also used to prepare it using their own home-raised chickens that used to run around their front yard ... Although it is ideal to use Taboon Bread, it is not found everywhere; like here in Dubai it is hard to get hold of Taboon Bread, so you can substitute with 'Shrak Bread'  a wafer thin bread, found in most supermarkets, and occasionally at lebanese markets."
 Because the type of bread is so important a lot of bloggers devote time to suggesting other sources. If you plan to try and make this dish - and you should - the advice below might be useful:
  • Clifford Wright: "Shrak bread is a thin whole-wheat bread baked on a domed griddle over an open fire, while marquq is a very thin yeasted flat bread. This bread can also be called saj, a bread cooked on a convex metal plate called a surj or saj, hence the name. All of these breads are stretched until very thin before being cooked."
  • web gaza: "Taboun bread is the traditional Palestinian bread baked over hot stones. It can be bought at some bakeries and major supermarkets. An adequate replacement is the "Shrak" bread, which is another traditional bread that is extremely thin and baked over a round hot plate."
  • Dana at Yummy Halal Recipes: "large loaves of "shrak" bread-the large thin round bread popular here in Jordan"
  • Joumana @ Taste of Beirut: "If you are unable to find markook, then you can use phyllo dough. Defrost it in the refrigerator and use about 6 leaves, brushing them with melted butter or a pray, so that they get some flavor. Or, use a couple large pitas, brushing them as well with butter or the fatty chicken broth. Freeze the remaining broth."
  • Lins Food: "For most of us, Taboon bread is not easily available, I suggest using any form of flat Middle Eastern bread you have access to; of course baking your own would be perfect. However, for this recipe, I shall assume we are going for shop bought."
  • In the US one website suggests: "Shrak bread or tortilla wraps or opened out pitta bread"
  • Laila Blogs: " u can use which ever u like ... some people use pitta that is split in half and others use what we call around here iranian bread which is similar to lavash bread … but traditionaly we use bread similar to naan but thinner and its baked in clay oven…"
  • The Levantess: "pita or flatbread"
  • Dimah at Orange Blossom Water uses "spring roll rappers"
Spring roll wrappers??? Okay, we'll come back to this later lol.

Some chefs / bloggers delete or add new ingredients:
  • Just For Licks adds potato:  "It is not usually made with potatoes because the bread is so starchy but I love the combination of chicken, onions, and potatoes."
  • Middle East Feast made the dish just with onion, with fried chicken served separately
  • the Food Spotting blog lists "Mushroom musakhan, leeks, chestnuts, sumac" spotted 
  • the Nestle Family website adds lemon
  • Greg Malouf adds "spinach, chickpeas and pine nuts" in his Saha book recipe. The Deep Dish Dreams blog ate this dish at his restaurant, noting "The first plate we had chosen was Musakhan. Mountain bread shrouds wrapped daintily around subtly spiced quail meat, a paste of chickpeas and shallots. Where once Greg might have used this dish to smack you in the face with cinnamon and baharat - and he would have served it in a pouch - we had a morsel more akin to a lighter, eastern European dumpling in its pared back refinement."
  • Syrian Foodie adds "pomegranate Molasses 1 tbsp (my own addition, optional)"
  • The Globe and Mail suggests making it with turkey left overs 
Quite a few authors and bloggers add additional spices, all of which look interesting: 
  • Middle East Feast - has lots of interesting spices - "allspice black pepper salt turmeric" and makes the "smac seasoning (optional)" 
  • Ginger Cream adds "nutmeg cinnamon and black pepper as well as sumac" 
  • Arabian Mama adds "cumin powder black pepper bay leaves cardamoms all spice" 
  • Lins Food adds a "clove of garlic" 
  • Greg Malouf adds 
  • Dima Sharif adds "garlic Bay Leaves Cloves Cardamon Seeds Black Pepper Black Pepper Juice of 1/2 lemon"
  • Mai Tamimi from New Zealand adds "a spice mix of cumin coriander cinnamon 2 Tbsp mild curry powder and black pepper"
  • Paula Wolfert adds "nutmeg and cinnamon"
  • Web Gaza suggests "To give an interesting taste to the chicken, add cardamom and bay leaves to the water."
And then there's how you cook and serve it.


Again there are lots of different stories re how the dish was originally cooked.  Some prefer the traditional way, baked in a covered dish the oven. Remember Desert Candy's wonderful description:
"Chicken pieces and caramelized onions wrapped up in swaths of of flatbread and baked until the chicken falls off the bone and the bread absorbs all those good chicken juices ... When I once described this dish to a friend, she exclaimed, "bread-wrapped roast chicken, that sounds like a dream!" And indeed, it is excellent. The bread, which is soft and full of chickeny juices on the bottom and crisp and crackly no top, the deep flavor of caramelized onions, the fleck of sumac, the tender meat. It's the sort of weeknight comfort food you can eat all week long.."
Clifford Wright's recipe is also a classical version:
" Cover a 9 x 12-inch baking dish with two overlapping halves of the Arabic bread or 2 sheets of marquq bread. Spoon half the onions over each, then arrange the chicken on top of the onions and cover with the remaining onions and the juices from the casserole. Cover with the two remaining half leaves of bread or sheets of marquq bread, tucking in the sides crusty side up. Cover the casserole with aluminum foil. Bake until the chicken is very tender and almost falling off the bone,  1 1/ 2  to 2 hours. Check by sticking a skewer into the chicken and it should glide in easily. If the top bread is getting too crispy, spray with water.  Serve hot."  
"This simple preparation is one of my favorites and the recipe comes from my former mother-in-law Leila al-Qattan, whose husband Abdul-Muhsin, normally a penetrating dinner conversationalist, loved musakhkhan so much that he never spoke at the table until he was finished."
Two other casserole versions:
  • We were always told that the dish should be cooked in the oven in a covered dish, casserole style, with bread all around. To serve you took off the bread lid, then served each person bread from the base, onions and chicken.  Our 2007 "diasporic adaptation" used this as it's base.
  • See also Ginger Cream's recipe
These classic recipes go right back to the time Musakhan was served as festival food, made in quite large quantities and served on family / communal tables on large trays and platters.  These days many recipes call for small rounds of bread served flat with the chicken and onion mix heaped in the centre, like the Nassar Family's version we first wrote about in 2007:

The Nassar Family's "Mousakhan with Game Hens"
photo source: Chronicle / Craig Lee

Musakhan Pizza or Musakhan served on flat bread is a very popular way to enjoy the dish.  Flat bread dishes like manakeesh are very popular in Palestinian cuisine. We wrote about this in our post about Sam's restaurant Zar Cafe in Canberra:
"Sam creates both the classics and new versions of [Palestinian traditional cuisine]. Here's Sam making manakeesh with za'atar, a very popular Palestinian breakfast dish, although it can be eaten any time ... Here's Sam pressing the dough into a flat bread shape, making little indentations with his fingertips: 
 
"As Wiki points out the word manakeesh: "is the plural of the Arabic word manqūshah (from the root verb naqasha 'to sculpt, carve out'), meaning that after the dough has been rolled flat, it is pressed by the fingertips to create little dips for the topping to lie in...." 
"Manakish is popular in most Levantine countries as well as Australia, especially in the major urban centres of Melbourne and Sydney where many Lebanese have settled. In these cities, bakeries selling Manakish are common in predominantly Lebanese areas, often called "Lebanese Pizzas". 
"Well some of us called them Palestinian pizzas, but you get the idea. Their topping can be everything from cheese to meat to herbs."
It can also be Musakhan - here's Sam's version below hot out of the oven.

Zar Bakery + Cafe - Musakhan flat bread

Zar Bakery + Cafe - Musakhan flat bread

 We can confirm all the lovely lemony peppery sumac-y caramelized onion-y chicken goodness of Musakhan came across in every mouthful.

Zar Bakery + Cafe - Musakhan flat bread

So we're converts on the Musakhan Pizza idea :)

Zar Bakery + Cafe - Musakhan flat bread

Other Musakhan pizza recipes:
Another popular form of Musakhan is to serve it rolled, either as a wrap or a pastry roll. Here's a few bloggers who'll help you if you decide to give this format a go:
We've tried quite a few of these over the last few weeks and can assure you each is very tasty.

QueenRania - Twitter
Our Friday family lunch today...delicious Musakhan
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Have we convinced you on the fact that Musakhan is still popular? If not, here's two final facts to make you smile. First, above is Queen Rania's Twitter photo of "Our Friday family lunch today...delicious Musakhan", so royalty still enjoys it.  And finally, did you know Musakhan is in the Guinness Book of Records?

AFP source

 From Wiki's Musakhan page:
"On April 20, 2010, the largest ever dish of Musakhan was prepared in Ramallah, Palestine and entered it into the Guinness Book of World Records. Palestinian Prime Minister, Salam Fayad, described it as a great achievement and honor for the Palestinian people: "This great achievement completely depended on Palestinian products, mainly olive oil. It also has a cultural dimension and a Palestinian message to the world that they want their legitimate rights." 
"The total diameter of the 'Musakhan' loaf was 4 meters, with a total weight of 1,350 kg. Forty Palestinian cooks made use of 250 kg of flour, 170 kg of olive oil, 500 kg of onions and 70 kg of almond."
Sadly Wiki doesn't mention the 500 chickens.

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We think Musakhan is safe from vanishing for a few generations yet.  It may look different to classical Musakhan in early 20th century Palestinian kitchens, but this magical dish remains, in Dima Sharif words "the heart of Palestinian cuisine".


References:
Musakhan recipes:
Thank you:
Thank you to Sam at Zar Bakery and Cafe who revived our interest in updating our Musakhan research and to all the amazing food bloggers who helped us in our research and kept us busy at this sad time.