Writer, photographer, chef and Slow Food activist Barbara Abdeni Massaad has an inexhaustible passion for the gastronomic culture of the Levant, seasoned with a strong social commitment.
A Beirut native, Barbara is the author of a number of books on Lebanese cuisine, winners of important international awards: Man’oushé: Inside the Street Corner Lebanese Bakery, Mouneh: Preserving Foods for the Lebanese Pantry and Mezze: A Labor of Love. She has also hosted a weekly TV segment on Lebanese channel LBCI for many years, featuring culinary tours around Lebanon to discover the country’s traditions and historic gastronomic specialties.
As well as being a talented photographer and chef, Barbara also has a keen concern for her home region’s sociopolitical situation. When the civil war in Syria brought almost 2 million refugees to neighboring Lebanon, pouring into the fertile Bekaa Valley, Barbara realized that her commitment to food activism had to go beyond communication.
After visiting some of the refugee camps in Bekaa, in 2016 Barbara decided to use her photographic talents to document the faces and stories of the people living there. This led to the Soup for Syria project, which eventually became a book of soup recipes donated by famous chefs from around the world. The volume has been translated into several languages, and its profits go to UNHCR, the United Nations refugee agency.
At Pollenzo Academic Tables, Barbara will be preparing two menus for the week of May 22 to 25.
The first starts with an orange lentil, carrot and cumin soup, followed by fatteh, made with stale Arab bread, yogurt and eggplant, and concluding with a classic baklava with walnuts, pistachios and almonds.
The second menu features hummus with shawarma (grilled meat) and pita, tabbouleh (parsley, bulgur and tomato salad) and for dessert mohlabieh, a milky pudding flavored with orange-blossom water.
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