No Somali Artifacts Were Harmed In The Making Of This Cookbook

Somali cuisine is a mixture of many traditions, from meat prepared according to nomadic customs, to a spice mix made possible by medieval Indian Ocean trade routes. There are even pasta dishes, owing to Italian colonization until 1960 – and you’ll often find a banana served on the side. Ifrah F. Ahmed has made it her mission to document and preserve the food of Somalia in her new cookbook, Soomaaliya: Food, Memory and Migration.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Dan Pashman?

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• 0:43Dan Pashman?

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• 1:08Speaker 01

  I feel like with garlic, garlic's just about vibes.

• 1:13Dan Pashman?

  How so?

• 1:14Speaker 01

  I never really like decide how many I'm gonna do. I just grab a handful and just throw them in there in the mortar and pestle.

• 1:21Dan Pashman?

  I went through a phase where I was just like, I'm just gonna keep adding more and more garlic to every single thing I cook to see if I could ever have too much garlic in something.

• 1:29Speaker 01

  Oh, my God. In terms of heartburn?

• 1:31Dan Pashman?

  In terms, yeah, in taste, heartburn, whatever, anything like, was there, are there any negative consequences? And I haven't gotten to that point yet.

• 1:38Speaker 01

  I don't feel like that point exists. I'm gonna be honest.

• 1:42Dan Pashman?

  Garlic smell good.

• 1:44Speaker 01

  I feel like you could just put garlic and onions and people think that you're making something incredibly complex, you know?

• 1:52Dan Pashman?

  This is The Sporkful. It's not for foodies, it's for eaters. I'm Dan Pashman. Each week on our show, we obsess about food to learn more about people. One quick note before we start, are you getting ready to plant a vegetable garden? This spring, do you have questions for a gardening expert? Maybe there's a certain veggie you always struggle to grow, or an issue you can't figure out. Or maybe you just want to get into it for the first time, you don't know where to start. Well, whatever it is, I want to hear from you. Send me an email or voice memo with your name, location, and question, and we'll ask a pro in an upcoming episode. Send that to me at [email protected]. All right, let's get into the show. Ifra Ahmed has made it her mission to document and preserve the food of Somalia, the country where she was born. Somali cuisine is made up of many things.

• 2:36Dan Pashman?

  A focus on meat, including camel, that traces its roots to a nomadic tradition. There's a spice mix called Hawash that comes from medieval trade across the Indian Ocean between Somalia and the Middle East and India. Then there are pasta dishes that have become common in Somalia that stemmed from decades of Italian colonization that ended in 1960. And often, there's a banana served on the side. More on that later. Point is, Somalis have melded these internal and external influences to create something distinct and all their own. Ifra grew up eating Somali food and learning from her mother how to cook it. She's also spent years researching the cuisine. Now she's poured all that work into her new cookbook, Somalia: Food, Memory, and Migration. Her work feels especially important right now, at a time when Somali culture is threatened.

• 3:21Dan Pashman?

  Somali-Americans are under attack by the US government, and there's a decades-long civil war still raging in Somalia, which has forced hundreds of thousands to flee to different places. That's made it harder to keep communities and traditions alive. And as Ifra points out in her book, Somali culture relies heavily on oral tradition. The cuisine is no different. So Ifra decided to write it all down for future generations. That being said, her book is just meant to be a snapshot.

• 3:47Speaker 01

  I understand that culture is never stagnant, it's always changing. And that's also like a lot of what we experience, especially abroad, you know? I think it's very normal for food traditions to shift and to change. I think what I'm trying to do is just make sure that what had existed isn't forgotten.

• 4:08Dan Pashman?

  Couple of weeks ago, I went to Ifra's apartment in Brooklyn to cook with her. And it wasn't just any meal. It was an iftar dinner for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. People observing Ramadan fast from sunrise to sunset every day for a month. Iftar is their breakfast meal each evening. I asked Ifra if there are any special dishes she makes during Ramadan.

• 4:26Speaker 01

  This is really the time of like sambusas. You're making sambusas like in bulk.

• 4:30Dan Pashman?

  A sambus is a dumpling, dough stuffed with ground meat and deep fried. Its name is related to the word samosa.

• 4:36Speaker 01

  The way that I grew up eating it is you would have burh, which is a kind of like a sweet cardamom beignet. And you cut that in half and then you would stuff the sambusa inside of it. And then you would eat them together as like a sandwich. So it would be kind of a sweet savory sort of like combination.

• 4:53Dan Pashman?

  Tonight, Ifra is going to show me how to make sambus.

• 4:56Speaker 01

  So the first thing I'm going to do is make sambus filling because that needs to cool.

• 5:03Dan Pashman?

  Okay, I'm about to pound some garlic here.

• 5:05Speaker 01

  My mortar and pestle.

• 5:10Dan Pashman?

  Once the garlic's pounded, Ifra sautees it with onions and ground beef. Ground beef going in. Then the most important part.

• 5:18Speaker 01

  This is the halash.

• 5:20Dan Pashman?

  Oh. Halash is sort of an all purpose Somali spice mix. Oh, my gosh. This is so aromatic. Oh, that smells so good. I want a candle that smells like that.

• 5:29Speaker 01

  Oh, my God. You make me hungry all the time.

• 5:33Dan Pashman?

  I mean, I think you'd be hard pressed to find a savory dish that that's not going to taste great.

• 5:37Speaker 01

  I mean, and the thing about halash is that whatever you add to it is usually better the next day. Cause like the flavors just like enhance, you know, like.

• 5:48Dan Pashman?

  The main things I'm smelling are like cumin and I think cinnamon.

• 5:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, so.

• 5:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, cloves are in there. There's cardamom, cardamom pods are in there too. And then there's black pepper, there's coriander, the cumin, and then there's turmeric. So it's like just a nice little.

• 6:07Dan Pashman?

  And I assume this is the kind of thing where like every Somali household has their own.

• 6:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, everyone has their own variation.

• 6:15Dan Pashman?

  Ifra chops up a bunch of cilantro and adds that next.

• 6:20Speaker 01

  I don't really measure the cilantro. I just grab a handful and I kind of work from there.

• 6:25Dan Pashman?

  Right.

• 6:26Speaker 01

  Somali food is very forgiving, you know?

• 6:28Dan Pashman?

  Right.

• 6:29Speaker 01

  But it's gonna taste good at the end of the day, so we don't really work from that super specific angle. It's just about how it feels, right?

• 6:37Dan Pashman?

  The hawash has given the meat a beautiful golden hue. Once everything's cooked, Ifra takes it off the burner.

• 6:43Speaker 01

  Okay, so that's good to go. We're gonna let that cool down. And then once this cools, uh, you know, we're gonna work on holding the sambuses together. There's quite a bit to do for that.

• 6:52Dan Pashman?

  I'm excited for that process.

• 6:53Speaker 01

  Good.

• 6:56Dan Pashman?

  While the sambus filling cools, let's hear a little more about Ifra. As I said, she was born in Somalia. She and her family left when she was four or five because of the Somali civil war. They became refugees, moving around different countries in East Africa for a year or two. Finally, they were able to move to Seattle. So Ifra got on her first ever flight, which is also where she tried her first ever American food.

• 7:16Speaker 01

  The one thing that I can remember is having cake and like spitting it out because it tasted nothing like the kind of cake that I knew. So like the frosting, like the really over the top sweetness. I feel like Somali cakes are a bit more subtle and they usually don't have like frosting or things like that. And asking my mom, like, what is this? Just, you know, kind of like weirded out. And she's like, oh, it's docho, you know, which is cake in Somali.

• 7:44Dan Pashman?

  Ifra's family settled in Tukwila, a suburb of Seattle that became a hub for Somali refugees. Tukwila's first Somali restaurant was called Marwa. It opened in 1998.

• 7:53Speaker 01

  We used to have a tradition of going to Marwa maybe on Fridays and then going to the Blockbuster to get movies. Yeah. And, you know, and my brother and I could each pick one movie and then, you know, you would bring that home. And then I lived around the corner from a McDonald's.

• 8:10Dan Pashman?

  Did I read that, like, you lived so close that you could smell it?

• 8:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, I could literally, we would open our windows and you could smell it.

• 8:16Dan Pashman?

  Oh, man.

• 8:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:17Dan Pashman?

  I mean, that, I, I feel like that would make you hungry all the time.

• 8:20Speaker 01

  Yeah. And like, I still crave that to this day because I feel like it's such a core, like, childhood memory.

• 8:26Dan Pashman?

  There's two ways that, that growing up with the smell of McDonald's fries. into your window every day. There's two ways that can go.

• 8:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, literally.

• 8:32Dan Pashman?

  One is like, get me as far away as possible from McDonald's. The other is like McDonald's smells like home.

• 8:38Speaker 01

  I know. I mean, I think as a, as a kid, you know, it's always going to be like, oh my God, I want McDonald's.

• 8:44Dan Pashman?

  Right, right, right. Did you have like sort of an understanding that there like there's Somali food and there's quote unquote, American food or like, how, how did you think about that as a little kid?

• 8:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I, I definitely had like two separate categories in my mind. And I didn't realize that until I started learning how to cook, right? Cause my mom would be teaching me Somali food specifically. And then when I was old enough to kind of be in the kitchen fully by myself, I really leaned towards also learning American food.

• 9:14Dan Pashman?

  What were some of your mom's specialties?

• 9:15Speaker 01

  She made so much wonderful food. Um, I would say for me, it's like really just the classic dishes of like burries, which is our spice aromatic rice. And then hilip, which is just, just means meat, but usually it would be goat meat. For example, sohilipari. And my mom just really making this like super tender goat, you know, she would use the, the broth from the meat for the rice. Or we would have that as like soup on the side sometimes. And then she would throw in the meat in the oven to like roast for a long time. And then the banana, uh, and the hot sauce.

• 9:51Dan Pashman?

  So was it like the banana that we think of in like American supermarkets or a different kind of banana?

• 9:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, regular, regular banana is usually they're on, you know, the ripest side. So they're very sweet. You cut pieces and you eat it with like the rice and the meat is kind of like gamey. And the rice is like very aromatic. And then you have the banana, like sweetness that really cuts through the hot sauce. Somali food is not spicy, but we always have basmati or hot sauce on the side. It's all balanced, you know?

• 10:19Dan Pashman?

  That stewed goat with rice, which by the way, sounds incredible. That was Ifra's mom's star dinner dish. But equally important to Ifra was her mom's Somali breakfasts.

• 10:29Speaker 01

  Oh man, where do I start? My mom usually made anjaro, uh, which is like a sourdough, kind of like pancake. It's pretty different from Ethiopian, Eritrean injera. Our anjaro typically has sorghum or corn flour and then also just like regular flour. Um, and it looks identical to an Indian dosa, actually.

• 10:47Dan Pashman?

  Oh. If so, so if someone has had. Ingera and or dosa.

• 10:52Speaker 01

  It's kind of somewhere in the middle.

• 10:54Dan Pashman?

  Okay.

• 10:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, like it's not as like sour or I mean, the tanginess is there for sure and it but you have a little more freedom in terms of like how long you fermented and how intense of a flavor you want.

• 11:07Dan Pashman?

  It sounds really good.

• 11:08Speaker 01

  It's good. It's it's and I like it. You can have it both sweet and savory, you know? This is my favorite breakfast of all time, actually. So it's angero, like a couple stacks of angero, and then you spread ghee or subah, as we say, on that. And then you sprinkle it with a bit of sugar and then you soak all of that in the shah, the spiced black tea.

• 11:27Dan Pashman?

  Oh.

• 11:28Speaker 01

  Um, and then optional is to also add some of the otka, the beef, like turkey cubes on top and to have the sweet and kind of like salty, you know, pancakes, syrup, you know, sausage, kind of very similar vibe.

• 11:42Dan Pashman?

  Yeah, but I mean, it sounds better than that. I mean.

• 11:44Speaker 01

  It is better.

• 11:48Dan Pashman?

  Growing up, Ifra's mom made it a priority to keep the family connected to their Somali heritage. So she was concerned with preservation, too. Ifra and her siblings went to weekend Islamic school. Her mom made sure they could speak Somali. And of course, she taught Ifra how to cook.

• 12:02Speaker 01

  It started with really simple stuff like, okay, this is how you make shah. That's actually the very first thing. This is how you make tea because usually that's the first thing you're offering to guests when they come to your home, you know? And then you're learning kafi, qahwul. And it's like, what can you greet with your guests or have on hand?

• 12:17Dan Pashman?

  From there, Ifra graduated to more involved dishes like angero and sambus. But as she got older, her feelings about her mom's cooking lessons got complicated.

• 12:26Speaker 01

  I was kind of a very dutiful daughter and 4.0 kind of did all the things, but internally was very also like angsty. You know, I was listening to a lot of punk music. I got into feminism. I would go to a lot of house shows as a hijabi at the time, you know, like, and I think with some of those lessons, I kind of initially was like. I don't, you know, like, why, why do I have to do this now? There's like other things that I want to do, kind of in the way that you feel as like a preteen or a teenager. And I think some of like the gendered aspects of it, maybe just coming into your consciousness, you know, at that time, it was kind of like, I don't understand why I have to learn this.

• 13:06Dan Pashman?

  Right. And I mean, I don't know whether your mother said it explicitly, but there's sort of like this message of like, girls need to learn this so that they can be good wives.

• 13:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I think that's found across.

• 13:17Dan Pashman?

  Many cultures.

• 13:18Speaker 01

  Many cultures. And, you know, I think I got to a point eventually, as I grew older, where I was like, okay, I actually see the benefit in this. Like, I'm gonna like divorce it from the idea of it being meant for someone else. And like, think about it as something that's actually a skill set for me to have. And then also my mom's way of like maintaining, you know, our connection to our culture.

• 13:41Dan Pashman?

  At the same time, she was learning to cook more Somali dishes. Ifra was also immersing herself in an integral part of American culture, Food Network. She became obsessed with all the different shows, the celebrity chefs, and the foods they were making. Ifra's mom was on board.

• 13:56Speaker 01

  I think she found this to be really amusing and she would go out of her way to like, help me experience some of these things. So like, I'm really into pancakes, you know, and so my mom would take me to different places to try like, specific pancakes. And I'd learn everything I could about like pancakes. And then I'd move on to a different American dish, you know?

• 14:12Dan Pashman?

  And then would you also try to make American style pancakes?

• 14:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. I mean, I would, I would also be making stuff at home. So I would be like, how can I?

• 14:17Dan Pashman?

  But you were like, you were kind of like a researcher. It sounds like you had a sort of part of your personality, not just you were interested in food and cooking, but there was this sort of like, I'm gonna go on a mission to get to the bottom of this.

• 14:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:28Dan Pashman?

  I'm gonna, I want to test and I'm gonna study, I'm gonna learn and I'm gonna get it as good as I can.

• 14:32Speaker 01

  I'm gonna figure it out, yeah.

• 14:36Dan Pashman?

  By the time Ifra left for college, she was fluent in Somali and adept in the kitchen. And as the years went by, her activist streak grew. That led her to law school and working with Somali refugees. But in the back of her mind.

• 14:48Speaker 01

  I knew what I wanted to do, but I was avoiding it. I was too scared to transition careers.

• 14:54Dan Pashman?

  Then in 2018, Ifra took a month off to go back to Somalia with her mom. It was the first time she'd been there since the 90s when she left as a small child. She didn't have many memories of the place.

• 15:04Speaker 01

  I knew that it would be emotional, but I didn't realize like how intense it would feel. Like it literally felt like something clicking into place, you know, like when I got off the plane, I had a really overwhelming urge to like literally kiss the ground. This feeling of like, I'm home, right? Like everyone around me is Somali. Like I'm not like a minority in a place, like everyone's speaking my language. I don't like stick out.

• 15:28Dan Pashman?

  What were some of the things that you ate there?

• 15:30Speaker 01

  I ate so much fish and just like, I think for me, it was less about like individual dishes and more about just like the ingredients and like how much more vibrant everything tasted and fresh tomatoes actually had flavor and like, you know, just things like that.

• 15:44Dan Pashman?

  How did it feel to kind of taste those dishes there?

• 15:48Speaker 01

  I mean, it was like, man, have I ever had this dish before? You know, like very, very similar kind of vibes. And then also just trying things that like, you know, maybe I wouldn't have grown up with, right? Certain street foods.

• 16:02Dan Pashman?

  When Ifra returned to the US, she started thinking more seriously about her dream of doing something with Somali food, maybe hosting dinner pop-ups, maybe a cookbook. She started listening to podcasts about Somalia, going to food events, telling people about her idea. Basically everything except actually doing it. This went on for a year.

• 16:19Speaker 01

  So my friends literally held an intervention.

• 16:22Dan Pashman?

  What was that? Like, was it literally like you came into the room and they were all sitting there?

• 16:26Speaker 01

  We were together and they were like, pulled out a calendar and they were like, we're tired of hearing you talk about this. Here's a calendar, you're going to do a pop-up. Here are these dates, pick one. And I was like, uh, you know, they were like, you just have to like get into the practice of it. You just have to do the thing and then from then on it'll be a little easier each time. And so I picked a date and that was like my very first Somali gathering or dinner, whatever.

• 16:56Dan Pashman?

  In the lead up to that first pop-up dinner? What were you thinking and feeling?

• 17:01Speaker 01

  I was scared, you know, I was like, oh my god, like, I'm actually doing this and I don't know if anyone's gonna like it. I just know that I like these dishes and just all the kind of anxieties that you have when you're entering like a new journey.

• 17:17Dan Pashman?

  And how'd that first dinner go?

• 17:19Speaker 01

  It was phenomenal. Like, it was relaxed and everyone was just so proud, like, to be there. And I think we're happy to, like, see that I'd finally done the thing that I'd been yapping their ears off, you know about?

• 17:31Dan Pashman?

  Right.

• 17:31Speaker 01

  And, yeah, it was beautiful.

• 17:34Dan Pashman?

  From there, Ifra's pop-up grew. She called it Milk and Myrrh, because Somalia is sometimes called the land of milk and myrrh. It started as elaborate, multi-course dinners in her apartment, drawing on Somali traditions of hospitality. Then, during a short stint living in L.A., Ifra came up with a less formal version of the pop-up, where she sold Anjaro breakfast burritos.

• 17:53Speaker 01

  The Anjaro burritos were the Anjaro that I grew up eating, and fule, which is, you know, fava bean stew, and then the eggs, and I would also have avocado and some bespas, and that would be all rolled up in the Anjaro, and that would be like...

• 18:06Dan Pashman?

  Oh, man.

• 18:07Speaker 01

  And then I had the vegan version, which I really loved. And that was also Anjaro, and then it was like, very garlicky, you know, braised kale, halash roasted sweet potatoes, and roasted mushrooms.

• 18:18Dan Pashman?

  Ooh. But so it's interesting to me, though, that you had this, and you still have with Milk and Myrrh, this sort of dichotomy.

• 18:24Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 18:24Dan Pashman?

  There's these two sides to it. There's the traditional Somali meal, like, this is, like, if you were in Somalia, or this is the kind that your mother might serve, the foods you grew up with.

• 18:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:33Dan Pashman?

  And then you have the other side of it that's sort of like, bringing influences of other cuisines and American food that you grew up with.

• 18:39Speaker 01

  Well, it's interesting, because, like, the Anjaro burritos, that's actually very traditional in terms of, like, the fillings themselves. I think the only thing I really changed is the presentation of, like, rolling it all together and calling it, like, a burrito, right?

• 18:52Dan Pashman?

  So maybe it's sort of more of a tweak around the edges?

• 18:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I think, I would say, like, with both formats, like, what I really try to do is, like, work from a place of, like, okay, here are the traditional ingredients, and here is, like, the technique, but, like, maybe the presentation is different, or I call it Somali food reimagined, because to me, it's still rooted in, like, the traditional cuisine, but how's it impacted by where I am or what's available?

• 19:21Dan Pashman?

  All right, so if our dinner is not ready yet.

• 19:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:24Dan Pashman?

  Ifra, but but something exciting just happened.

• 19:27Speaker 01

  It's time to have some water and have some dates.

• 19:30Dan Pashman?

  The sun went down.

• 19:31Speaker 01

  The sun went down.

• 19:33Dan Pashman?

  First sip of water, how does it feel?

• 19:35Speaker 01

  Refreshing.

• 19:37Dan Pashman?

  It's customary for Muslims to break the Ramadan fast by eating dates. So should we have a date?

• 19:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, would you, do you like some?

• 19:43Dan Pashman?

  Sure. I mean, I'll just have one because I haven't been fasting all day.

• 19:47Speaker 01

  I typically only have one also. I mean, some people do three, but as you can see, these are massive dates.

• 19:52Dan Pashman?

  Those are big ones.

• 19:53Speaker 01

  So three of those, I'm like, at that point, maybe I'm messing with my appetite for dinner.

• 19:58Dan Pashman?

  Right, right.

• 19:59Speaker 01

  So let's eat these dates.

• 20:04Speaker 01

  And I like when they're soft and like kind of almost juicy. I hate a dry date, like a firm, dry date.

• 20:11Dan Pashman?

  The worst.

• 20:12Speaker 01

  My nightmare.

• 20:13Dan Pashman?

  They're hard. I like when they're juicy inside, but the outside is just like a little bit, almost like crackly. That's my dream date.

• 20:23Speaker 01

  That's a good sun dried date.

• 20:24Dan Pashman?

  Yeah.

• 20:31Dan Pashman?

  Coming up, Ifra tells me about the time when her difficulty eating inspired her to write her cookbook. She also shares a hack for making sambus. Is it so simple even I can do it? We'll find out. Stick around.

• 20:49Speaker 02

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• 20:56Dan Pashman?

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• 22:21Dan Pashman?

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• 23:31Speaker 03

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• 24:04Dan Pashman?

  Welcome back to The Sporkful. I'm Dan Pashman. First off, quick reminder, we are doing a live show in Brooklyn this Thursday night. Get your tickets while you still can. Cookbook author Kenji Lopez Alt and comedian Judy Gold will be my guests. Tickets and details at sporkful.com/live. And hey, did you know that every Friday here on The Sporkful, we put out a special reheat episode? We pull a fan favorite show from our deep freezer and reheat it just for you. This is in addition to our regular Monday episodes. It's a way for you to hear past episodes you may have missed, re-hear ones you loved, and just share some of our most requested shows from the archive. Last week, we reheated my conversation with Hollywood legend turned taco magnate Danny Trejo. We also recently reheated a very personal one,

• 24:47Dan Pashman?

  where Janie and I talk about how pork almost came between us early in our relationship, because she grew up kosher and I didn't. We got a lot of great stuff that we're reheating for you, and you can also request one of your own favorites by sending us a note at [email protected]. Thanks.

• 25:03Dan Pashman?

  Now, back to cookbook author Ifra Ahmed. After a year or so of running her pop-up, Milk and Mur, the pandemic hit. Ifra was also pregnant and having a difficult time of it. She ended up in bed for months, barely able to eat. She wasn't cooking either. She had to find other ways to channel her creative energy. So she started writing down her recipes. Eventually, she realized she was writing a cookbook. Ifra had wanted to write a book about Somali cuisine for a while, but she wasn't sure what form that book should take.

• 25:30Speaker 01

  The purpose of the book was to really make sure that I could...

• 25:36Speaker 01

  Preserve Somali cuisine, you know, and be able to like share it with another generation, either my generation or my daughter's generation, or hopefully beyond that. But I didn't even know that this would be a cookbook, like when I came up with it, you know, like I was like, this needs to happen, but I don't know if it's going to be like a nonfiction, like historical book about like Somali culinary traditions, or if it's going to be like a cookbook. And then eventually I realized like, oh, it has to include the recipes because as I'm doing the recipe development work and publishing stuff, like I'm seeing in real time like how grateful people are to have the blueprint to work off of. And so like if the whole thing is like that I wanna help preserve Somali culinary traditions, like I can't not also provide the recipes as well.

• 26:19Speaker 01

  So the recipes are incredibly important, they're there, but for me, it's not just a cookbook, it's like beyond that, it's really sort of like a manual for understanding what Somali cuisine and culinary traditions are. Cause I think also there has been such a fundamental like misunderstanding of like Somali people and like as of late, also a ton of animosity towards my community. And so I wanted people to understand our proud, rich history and to have like that context for understanding like why we were eating pasta, right? Or why we have bananas with our food, or you know, why we have all these like spices and things like that.

• 26:54Dan Pashman?

  You know, I think when you first came to the US, the thing that most Americans knew about Somalia was the civil war, Mogadishu, Black Hawk Down, that was all anybody knew.

• 27:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:02Dan Pashman?

  I do think there's hopefully more understanding than there was then, but still a lack of understanding. Um, and now in the past few months in particular, we've seen what's happened in Minnesota where there's also a very big Somali community, ICE moving in there has eventually influenced a lot of immigrants, but originally the target was Somali immigrants.

• 27:22Speaker 01

  Right.

• 27:23Dan Pashman?

  What has this time been like for you?

• 27:26Speaker 01

  I mean, it's been, it's just been absolutely surreal. I feel like growing up.

• 27:33Speaker 01

  People either didn't know who Somali people were, or if they did, it was really limited to these Hollywood stereotypes. And so to go from kind of not being known at all, you know, to basically the big bad wolf. I sometimes I'm like, I miss the days where nobody knew like who we were, you know? But yeah, it's been really infuriating, you know? And most Somalis are citizens. And so like a lot of it has felt very just like targeted and like racist and kind of like a collective punishment sort of thing. Um, it's been really intense to see the community harassed at such a crazy level and to see people's lives disrupted and not just the Somali community,

• 28:17Speaker 01

  but like the community in, you know, Minneapolis in general. But I've also been incredibly proud of my community and really seeing like the resistance and seeing, you know, the strength. And yeah, I'm, I'm so proud of my community. I'm so proud to like be Somali.

• 28:37Dan Pashman?

  As I said, Somali culture has a strong oral tradition. Ifra says it's common for people to memorize their patrilineal ancestors, going back many generations, just so when they meet someone, they can determine whether they're related. And in keeping with that tradition, writing down recipes is also uncommon. Ifra's mom's cooking lessons were more like pinch of this, fistful of that. All the more reason why Ifra wanted to create a written record. There was another reason. As the Somali diaspora grows, Ifra is part of a broader trend of more Somalis sharing their food with the world.

• 29:08Speaker 01

  I think there's a tendency of not really ever considering that, like, could things ever start from Africa? Like, could Africa ever be like a starting point? Instead of like, there's always an assumption that Africa can only be influenced, but it's never like the influencer, you know what I mean? And so like, I kind of want to like have people think deeply about that a bit more, you know? And I think like also there is a tendency to boil Somalia down to like, okay, it's like Italian food with like this, with that, with that, you know? Instead of like, okay, well, what is like indigenous Somali cuisine? And so I tried to also have that representation in there.

• 29:45Dan Pashman?

  One of the interesting things about. Preservation is that culture is always changing.

• 29:50Speaker 01

  Right.

• 29:50Dan Pashman?

  Everywhere. So how do you think about that sort of constant evolution of a cuisine like Somali cuisine in relation to the idea of preservation?

• 29:59Speaker 01

  My thing is, it's not like, oh, we need to stay in this form and be frozen in this time. I'm very pro like things moving and changing and shifting. And they are in Somalia, by the way.

• 30:09Dan Pashman?

  What are some of the hot new trends?

• 30:11Speaker 01

  I feel like people are doing a lot of milk cakes and, you know, like doing different types of seafood boils. It's like a thing now, which like people were not really eating a lot of seafood.

• 30:21Dan Pashman?

  I mean, my head up picture, like a crawfish boil, like a giant pot with like shrimp and potatoes.

• 30:26Speaker 01

  You can go to a restaurant and now that's becoming like a trendy thing. And, and so like, I think that's cool. I think that's interesting. I just want to make sure what we had isn't forgotten and so that people have access to that knowledge if they want it.

• 30:40Dan Pashman?

  For her cookbook, Ifra put a lot of thought into the photography. It wasn't just about photos of the recipes. She wanted to show life in Somalia, people at the beach, the markets, people gathering together and eating.

• 30:50Speaker 01

  For me, like I couldn't write a book like this about Somali cuisine, about like the history of it. And really with the intent of like preservation without also going to Somalia and, you know, getting the energy, getting the people, getting the landscapes and like the city and the food. You know, you can't do this from a distance, basically. And I really wanted to show Somali food as this like living thing, right?

• 31:15Dan Pashman?

  And also to connect the recipes in the book to the place.

• 31:18Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 31:19Dan Pashman?

  The photos of the finished dishes that go with the recipes were shot in New York, but those also included a special touch.

• 31:25Speaker 01

  I had a friend of mine, he runs an archive where basically he buys back Somali artifacts, like vintage Somali artifacts that either were looted or like, you know, bought by European collectors, private European collectors. So he came from Toronto with like two massive suitcases of these artifacts. And I was able to use it in like the New York shoot, which is cool because it felt like, okay, this is a book that deals with history a lot as well. And to have that visual connection to the history of Somali food and Somali people, it's just, it's nice to be able to include that.

• 31:56Dan Pashman?

  I love that. And I noticed like some of the sort of the serving plates and the things. And I was like, wow, these are so beautiful.

• 32:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:02Dan Pashman?

  I noticed those. I loved, I didn't realize that there was this backstory to that.

• 32:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, literally like some of that stuff is from the 1700s, 1800s. Like, yeah.

• 32:10Dan Pashman?

  Were you nervous putting food on them?

• 32:12Speaker 01

  Um, so it looks like the food is on them, but it's not. There's like, yeah.

• 32:17Dan Pashman?

  Wax paper underneath the plastic. All right, I was gonna say, yeah, like what do you know?

• 32:22Speaker 01

  No, I'm not ruining Asian small artifacts. I would never.

• 32:29Dan Pashman?

  I'm really enjoying my conversation with Ifra, but we still have an Iftar dinner to put together. The sambus filling is cooled. Now it's time to fold them.

• 32:36Speaker 01

  I'm gonna put you on sambus duty now.

• 32:38Dan Pashman?

  All right, I'm ready.

• 32:39Speaker 01

  Hand me those tortillas.

• 32:40Dan Pashman?

  Okay. That's right, Ifra said tortillas, because we're making sambus the way she and many other Somali Americans do, using flour tortillas as the wrapper instead of making dough from scratch. We cut the tortillas into quarters. Each quarter will wrap one sambus. So, so this is the thing I've always wanted to get good at is like constructing any type of dumpling from any food culture.

• 33:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:02Dan Pashman?

  Like stuffed dough.

• 33:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:04Dan Pashman?

  I feel like I haven't done it and I want to get good at it.

• 33:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, sambusa folding, once you get the hang of it, it'll be super easy, but it's just the initial process of learning. I feel like it takes a while.

• 33:15Dan Pashman?

  Okay.

• 33:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:16Dan Pashman?

  All right.

• 33:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, and you have a lot to practice with, because you're gonna be, you know, folding quite a few until the meat runs out, basically.

• 33:23Dan Pashman?

  Ifra makes a flour and water paste that'll be the glue to seal the pockets shut and keep the fillings inside.

• 33:28Speaker 01

  And then basically what we do is we make it into a cone,

• 33:33Speaker 01

  fill it, seal it, fry it.

• 33:36Dan Pashman?

  Fill it, seal it, fry it. She shows me how to wrap the tortilla around the filling to tuck it in all nice and snug, then seal it with the paste. All right, my turn to try?

• 33:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, you're gonna try.

• 33:46Dan Pashman?

  I'm feeling a lot of pressure here.

• 33:48Speaker 01

  You got this. I believe in you.

• 33:50Dan Pashman?

  Oh, thank you. All right.

• 33:52Speaker 01

  So.

• 33:52Dan Pashman?

  I mean, all the ingredients are delicious, so even if my sambus falls apart, it's still gonna taste really good.

• 33:58Speaker 01

  It's gonna taste amazing.

• 33:59Dan Pashman?

  That's what I'm telling myself.

• 34:00Speaker 01

  It's gonna taste amazing. You'll be good.

• 34:02Dan Pashman?

  I try my first one, and the results are not terrible. Can you tell which one is Dan's?

• 34:09Dan Pashman?

  All right, I mean, not as pretty as yours, Ifra, but I mean, for a first ever sambus, I think I did okay.

• 34:15Speaker 01

  Congratulations.

• 34:18Dan Pashman?

  Then I try another one. All right, take a look. Take a look at this.

• 34:23Speaker 01

  Oh, you're a pro. Are you joking?

• 34:25Dan Pashman?

  I'm getting better, right?

• 34:26Speaker 01

  You're a pro. Look at that. Why is the second one so much better than the first?

• 34:31Dan Pashman?

  Imagine how good the third one could be. Once we fold up a few more, it's time to fry.

• 34:37Speaker 01

  So it goes really fast and you want it to get crushed up golden brown color. So.

• 34:43Dan Pashman?

  Should I flip them?

• 34:44Speaker 01

  You're gonna flip it, yeah.

• 34:45Dan Pashman?

  Oh, alright.

• 34:46Speaker 01

  That's looking really, really nice.

• 34:48Dan Pashman?

  I love it. We fry the rest of the sambus. Ifra has also made a chicken stew called soiree de gare. It has onions, bell peppers, cilantro, and plenty of hawash. She'll serve that over rice. Then she makes fresh bisbas, the Somali hot sauce with lots of jalapeno and lime juice, plus cilantro and garlic. That'll be for dipping the sambus. At last, we sit down. Alright, we have everything out here. You gotta join me here, Ifra. You're hungry than I am. Mmm, that is so good. And this hack of using flour tortillas to make any kind of like fried pocket food is revolutionary.

• 35:25Speaker 01

  Thank you. I mean, I didn't come up with it, but thank you.

• 35:27Dan Pashman?

  Well, I'm giving you the credit.

• 35:27Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 35:28Dan Pashman?

  But I also just feel like, yeah, like, I kinda like, I love all foods like this.

• 35:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:32Dan Pashman?

  And I kinda always wanted to make it, but I was intimidated by like, am I gonna need to, which kind of dough am I gonna buy?

• 35:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 35:38Dan Pashman?

  You know?

• 35:38Speaker 01

  And you don't even have to think about it.

• 35:40Dan Pashman?

  That's right.

• 35:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:41Dan Pashman?

  Alright, I'm going in.

• 35:42Speaker 01

  Go in, go in.

• 35:45Dan Pashman?

  Mmm.

• 35:47Dan Pashman?

  Wow. The sambus with the best best. It's like you get, because the sambus is like, it's fried. It's a little fatty. It's got the meat inside. It's a little, so it's like rich.

• 35:59Speaker 01

  Right.

• 36:00Dan Pashman?

  And then when you hit it, which is a tiny bit of the jalapeno and the lime juice and the cilantro, it's like so bright, so acidic.

• 36:08Speaker 01

  Right.

• 36:09Dan Pashman?

  Perfect.

• 36:13Dan Pashman?

  Well, Ifra, Ramadan Mubarak.

• 36:16Speaker 01

  Thank you. Ramadan Kareem. I appreciate you coming to hang out and, you know, break bread with me and learning the process of sambus making.

• 36:25Dan Pashman?

  This is a lifelong skill that I've gotten from this night.

• 36:28Speaker 01

  Now you can make it in batches and, you know, have it all, all year round.

• 36:31Dan Pashman?

  Oh, my God. Thank you.

• 36:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, family project.

• 36:41Dan Pashman?

  That's Ifra Ahmed. Her new book is Somalia: Food, Memory, and Migration. It comes out next week, but you can preorder it right now. Why wait? You can also follow Ifra on Instagram at IF Ahmed. And exciting news, we are going to give away one copy of Somalia to a lucky newsletter subscriber. To enter for your chance to win, all you got to do is sign up for our newsletter at sporkful.com/newsletter by March 31st. If you're already subscribed, you're automatically entered into this and all of our giveaways. So you want to be on that list. If you don't win this time, maybe you'll win next time. Again, that's sporkful.com/newsletter, open to US addresses only. Next week on the show, I am heading to China. China's dining scene has grown at an incredible pace over the past 30 years,

• 37:23Dan Pashman?

  and I visit two restaurants to get two very different tastes of what it's like. That's next week. While we wait for that one, check out last week's show with London chef Asma Khan, owner of Darjeeling Express. And make sure you check out all our re-heats. And hey, did you know you can listen to The Sporkful on the SiriusXM app? Yes, the SiriusXM app, it has all your favorite podcasts, plus over 200 ad-free music channels curated by genre and era, plus live sports coverage. Does your podcasting app have that? And there's interviews with A-list stars and so much more. It's everything you want in a podcast app and music app, all rolled into one. And right now, Sporkful listeners can get three months free of the SiriusXM app by going to siriusxm.com/sporkful. This episode was produced by me along with managing producer Emma Morgans-Turner

• 38:08Dan Pashman?

  and senior producer Andres O'Hara It was edited by Camille Stanley Our engineer is Jared O'Connell And our intern is India Rice Music help from Black Label Music. The Sporkful is a production of SiriusXM Podcasts. Our executive producer is Camille Stanley. Until next time, I'm Dan Pashman.

• 38:24Speaker 04

  And I'm Lindsay Leslie from Baltimore, Maryland, reminding you to eat more, eat better, and eat more better.

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