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Breaking Bread

This is a documentary about the first Muslim Arab to win Israel's Masterchef TV cooking contest, Nof Atamna-Ismaeel. and her idea of running the A-Sham Arabic food festival. This brings chefs from all over Israel - some Arab, some Jewish, some Christian - and gives them a specific Levantine dish to make that has fallen out of favour or just been forgotten. Each chef is nominated to pair up with someone from a different background, town, religion even, and herein lies the interest (great looking food notwithstanding).

We get to meet about 3 main pairs, as well as a few minor 'characters' through the course of the film. I'd say the spotlight is probably on Shlomi and Ali. Shlomi is an Israeli Jew, whose grandparents came from Eastern Europe, after surviving the Holocaust, and Ali is from Ghajar, an oddly placed town, half Israeli, half Lebanese. They are tasked with making a yoghurt based delicacy called Kishek, and the intricacies of the preparation are fairly extreme.

The city of Haifa, on the northern coast of Israel, hosts the festival. I'd only heard of this place via Maccabi Haifa, the football team so it was nice to hear that it's a politically and religiously moderate place. The mayor is interviewed and he comes across as quiet a reasonable dude. Proud too, but not in a bad way. The whole issue of politics is treated quite lightly, the most left-wing moment being a sign at the festival saying something along the lines of "If you're a racist, sexist, homophobe or an asshole, don't come in". But for the most part the religious and geo-political problems are, perhaps naively, looked at through a lens of delicious grub. The director, Beth Elise Hawk, and Nof posit the idea that food is a workable jumping-off point to achieve peace in the region. Nof says "I don't believe that there is any room for politics in the kitchen" but that she hopes to change the mind of one or two people. Maybe so, maybe not, but it's worth a shot.

The whole film is shot and presented like a slick promo video, a super glossy TV ad for the festival. It's chaptered with titles like 3 Days, 35 Restaurants, etc. and the slow motion camerawork actually smells like cheese, though, in fairness, it's probably the best way to present these dishes. Stand-outs for me include the aforementioned Kishek (made as a kind of soup), a type of fried rice thing called Maqluba (without the octopus, though, thanks), and a dumpling number called Kreplach. And of course hummus is everywhere because as the film says, hummus has no borders.

Breaking Bread opens in Perth on June 3rd at the Luna.

See also:

The format and style reminded me a bit of The Booksellers (2019), directed by D.W. Young, and the superb drool of Campbell Scott and Stanley Tucci's Big Night (1996), still the best food film ever made.

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