Fadi Kattan Pays a Loving Tribute to Bethlehem
Food with Mark Bittman
Sweetness and Light
4.9 • 947 Ratings
🗓️ 24 October 2025
⏱️ 34 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this revisiting of a 2024 episode, chef and author Fadi Kattan talks to Mark and Kate about the dangers of simplifying reality; why we should recognize and champion origin, and how doing so is a lesson in humility; the effect the Israeli conflict has had on agriculture; and his cookbook, Bethlehem.
We're sharing two recipes from Bethlehem on the Bittman Project – Fig Salad, and Mujadara – and you can find them here.
https://bittmanproject.com/recipe/fadi-kattans-fig-salad/
https://bittmanproject.com/recipe/fadi-kattans-mujadara/
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to food. I'm Kate Bitman, and we are so glad that you're here with us. If you want more, |
| 0:08.2 | remember to check us out online at bitmanproject.com. We've got more than 1,500 recipes with new ones |
| 0:14.6 | added daily, plus some really wonderful food writing from some really wonderful food writers, |
| 0:20.5 | and recommendations for products and more. |
| 0:23.2 | Bitmanproject.com. And as always, email us with any questions or feedback at food at markbitman.com. When we originally ran this episode more than a year ago, we received, not surprisingly |
| 0:52.1 | at all, both extremely negative and extremely positive feedback. |
| 0:57.6 | Fadi Qatan is a Franco-Palestinian chef who lives in Bethlehem. He's also from Bethlehem and owns two restaurants. |
| 1:06.0 | Akub in London and Luf in Toronto. Both of Fadi's restaurants celebrate Palestine's rich diversity |
| 1:13.2 | of ingredients and culinary traditions and feature his twist on the cherished food of his homeland. |
| 1:19.2 | Sounds great to me, and I hope to visit at least one of his spots at some point in the not-so-distant |
| 1:24.3 | future. Also, if you are interested, you should check out Fadi's cookbook, |
| 1:28.4 | Bethlehem, a celebration of Palestinian food. But of course, the feedback we got was political and |
| 1:34.2 | came from both ends of the spectrum. Lots of thank yous for featuring a Palestinian chef, |
| 1:40.0 | lots of, I hope you'll feature an Israeli chef, too. Nothing too terrible, but it felt weird that |
| 1:46.2 | we couldn't feature Foddy without getting entwined in politics. Again, though, not surprising. |
| 1:52.2 | I won't pretend that I know more than about 0.0001% of the history between Israel and Palestine. |
| 1:59.9 | I'm Jewish by birth, but that certainly doesn't |
| 2:02.1 | make me Israeli or pro-Israel. I consider myself a humanist more than anything, and I certainly don't |
| 2:07.8 | think innocent people on any side of any conflict should suffer. I was such a black and white person |
| 2:13.0 | up until not long ago, and I've only recently begun to embrace the gray side of things. If the last |
| 2:18.7 | few years, on many levels, have showed us anything, it's that nuance is one of the most important |
| 2:23.9 | things we can learn as humans. We can feel sympathy for both sides. We can form our own opinions |
... |
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