Jonathan Elkhoury goes to Jerusalem’s Mahane Yehuda Market to discover the secret of great shakshuka – Love.
Transcription:
Hi there, I’m Jonathan. I’m here, in the Mahane Yehuda Shuk in Jerusalem to enjoy some shakshuka. Shakshuka is a dish made of tomatoes. When I grew up in Lebanon, people were killed at checkpoints for saying the word “tomato” in the wrong dialect. The Palestinian dialect is “bandora.” But the Lebanese Christian dialect is “benadura.” But now I’m in Israel and here we say “agvania.” Or as the famous line says, “I say tom-ay-to and you say tom-ah-to.” So let’s go enjoy some shakshuka in the shuk. Wow, you can even buy shakshuka in borekas. We are in the Mahane Yehuda Market and this is your place. What’s it called? It’s the Shakshuka House. It’s called Shakshuk, like “market” and “shakshuka” together. And now we’ll show you how we make the shakshuka. So, sauce we make in the morning, a big pot. What’s in the sauce? Onion, tomato, also garlic. All the things I use are from the Mahane Yehuda market. So we have here a few kinds of shakshuka, the eggplant, we do the eggplant on the fire we put only the inside of the eggplant, and this is with black olives, and we serve it with a big bread you eat it with the shakshuka, it’s the best. So what is so special about this shakshuka? I’ll tell you. When you cook with love, and with your heart, you feel in the taste that it is special. My family, my grandmother is from Syria, and my grandfather is from Kurdistan. So we spoke at home Kurdish, Hebrew and also Arabic. They lived in a mixed city? Yes, yes. Jews, Muslims. So it was basically like this area over here, you are all mixed, cultures and religions over here. In the Mahane Yehuda. Yes. Even your worker is Muslim, right? Yes, he’s Muslim. So you’re connecting really good. Yes. To know other people is very good, from both sides – Arabs and Jews. Ultimately, we are all human beings. The people around here, who are the people who come here to eat? So we have all the Muslims who work here, in the Mahane Yehuda Market. And of course we have all the people here, who come to the market to shop. There is no difference between Arabs, Jews, Americans, Christians or Muslims. We are all the same. No difference. Really. And I want to tell you about the people who work in the Mahane Yehuda Market. Both Jews and Arabs, we work here together, it’s like a family. Every day we see each other and we eat together, and if something happens we are sad together. Now I want to invite all the people Arabs, Muslims, Christians, Jews, all the people to come and eat here in Jerusalem. Because food, when it comes from the heart with love, it’s for all the people. That’s fantastic. Thank you very much Michal. Thank you Jonathan. I had a great day here in Mahane Yehuda Market and I can’t wait to show you more.
