At Synonym, we tell immigrant stories through food. As foreigners in a new land, the taste of home can bring us comfort and familiarity. Combining those flavors with food creates new traditions, a new heritage.
We will highlight these stories and share how trade, politics, colonialism, and capitalism have transformed food cultures around the world, for both immigrants and native inhabitants. We will explore all of this in the most intimate way possible: through the flavors shared across generations, the dishes served at a table, the spices packed in a suitcase.

#2 Explore rice and beans through all the senses.

Omnia Saed presents two chefs from Flavors from Afar, a restaurant that highlights and celebrates refugees and former asylum seekers turned chefs. Menal Kidane and Maria-Yvette Winters share their experiences as refugees and how their food and flavors help them find a home. We delve into the percussive sounds of bean processing in Masii, Kenya, by Neema Syovata. "The rhythmic 'whack! whack! whack!' of the group's alternating blows transforms the task into a kind of musical performance." French-Palestinian chef Fadi Kattan, of Akub in London, discusses his new cookbook, Bethlehem, and the act of sharing his culture and heritage while preserving culinary traditions. Ethel Shayne, a 100-year-old Baghdadi Indian Jew, shares what life was like in India and the cultural and culinary changes her family experienced when they moved from Baghdad to Kolkata and then to Los Angeles. We also had the opportunity to chat with the all-female rock/punk band The Linda Lindas about life and food on the road.

102 pages, spiral bound, full color.
Cover photo: Joyce Lee.