Vancouver’s Wildly Popular Dinner Series is Helping Syrian Women Settle Into a New Home

To Vancouverites, Syrian food is in part a way to support of late arrived refugees. And to the Syrian women who prepare the food, it is a way to find their footing in a new home. With a $500 CAD grant from a local foundation, the Cairo-born international development consultant organized what was to be a one-off dinner to connect Syrians and Canadians.

They’ve as well introduced a catering firm. “We want to create bridges with different communities in the city,” states Elwan. In September, I was one of 160 people at the largest Tayybeh dinner to date, held at the Vancouver Japanese Language School. “[The location] really resonated with us, given the Japanese community were newcomers and that they went through their fair share of adversity,” states Nihal, referring to a period in the 1940s when the the authorities seized Japanese-Canadians’ property and sent them to internment camps.

Under the roof of one community’s resilience, we dug in to help another establish itself. The first bite yielded a silky green reminiscent of tea—slightly tannic, with the texture of chard—that gave way to the richness of a Sunday roast chicken, then a punch of tomato and lemon.

Originally from Damascus, she came to Vancouver in October 2016, and coincidentally, mloukheye is her favorite dish to prepare. Eagranie Yuh “ The stew with greens and chicken? ” I ask.

With Nihal acting as interpreter, Maha explains that each Syrian city has a different way of preparing the dish. Gift subscriptions available. “You tried the recipe from Latakia [where Raghda is from],” says Nihal.

In Latakia, the greens are boiled in water first, while in Damascus they’re pan-fried in ghee for a crunchier texture. In Vancouver, the ladies acquire the greens dried, and can only find them in a few Arab stores—a far cry from back home, where Maha got fresh leaves and dried them herself.

Nihal explains they’ve tried many different kinds, “but they keep saying, ‘it’s not right, it’s not right!’” Meat comes frozen from the halal butcher. For the ladies, the Tayybeh project is a natural extension of what they’ve done their whole lives: cook and welcome people to the table.

The notion of a method, in the Western sense, seems foreign to them; Maha says she has a “breath” for preparation that doesn’t rely on instructions. For the ladies, the Tayybeh project is a natural extension of what they’ve done their whole lives: cook and welcome people to the table.

This is the same that we had [in Syria],” she says through Nihal. For them, the business is a gateway, not just to a better income than they’d receive in other restaurant work, but to developing the skills they need in Vancouver: learning English, navigating public transit, and building up a resume.

It tastes like dried greens from the Arabic store, soaked in water like they do in Latakia, melded with stock from too-lean Canadian chicken, and stewed until silky. To the ladies of Tayybeh, it doesn’t quite taste like home.