The Gaza Kitchen:
A Palestinian Culinary JourneyThe Gaza Kitchen Story
Gaza has a rich food tradition and a unique cuisine combining Levantine and Egyptian elements. The history of its population can be traced through its recipes, which reflect the influence of exile from all over Palestine as well as a changing society and customs.
This is a cookbook which brings together these recipes serves as testimony to this heritage and history.
Research for the book began in 2009. Its first edition was published in March 2013, coupled with a tour. The second edition followed in 2016, and the third edition and latest edition has been out since 2021.
The Gaza Kitchen blazed a strong trail that many other Palestinian cookbooks then followed. Together, they established Palestinian cuisine as a distinguished part of the world’s cultural heritage. The Gaza Kitchen has been lauded for the clarity and accuracy of its recipes - and also for the deep humanism of the authors’ approach, in which the joyous faces and families of Gaza’s cooks and food vendors share equal space with the recipes.
The latest edition is a timely update of the much-loved, award-winning cookbook, presenting 130 recipes collected by the authors in Gaza. Edition three includes new stories, recipes, and photos gathered during a late-2019 visit to Gaza by co-author Laila El-Haddad.
Videos & Interviews
Gaza Kitchen co-author Laila El-Haddad describes the making of the book, and its lasting impact.
Recipe for Life: Laila El-Haddad
The Jerusalem Fund & Palestine Center
Meet the Authors
Laila El-Haddad
Laila El-Haddad is a Palestinian writer, culinary ethnographer and leading voice on the situation in Gaza. She co-authored The Gaza Kitchen: A Palestinian Culinary Journey alongside Maggie Schmitt and co-edited the anthology Gaza Unsilenced with the late Dr. Refaat El-Areer.
Maggie Schmitt
Maggie works in various media—writing, photography, video, food—to explore how everyday life intersects with history, political imaginaries and ecological realities.
About Just World Books
We were established in 2010 with the goal of expanding the discourse in the United States and worldwide on issues of pressing international concern. Our strongest foci have been on issues of Palestinian rights and on anti-war and war-questioning titles related to West Asia (the 'Middle East'), and worldwide.
Our books include works of strong, original research into the background of current events, memoirs by notable advocates for peace and human equality, works that celebrate aspects of Middle Eastern culture and history, author-curated compilations of shorter texts previously published online, and short-story collections. Most of our books are available in a variety of ebook formats along with their print versions.
2016 saw the start of the activities of our partners at Just World Educational (JWE), a non-profit organization incorporated in Virginia and led by a distinguished eight-person board. JWE is currently working in parallel with Just World Books to organize educational activities on the same range of issues that Just World Books publications deal with and in a way that is often synergistic with our book publishing.