In Bibi's Kitchen | Hawa Hassan
In Bibi’s Kitchen
By Hawa Hassan with Julia Turshen
Intro: Welcome to the number one cookbook podcast, Cookery by the Book with Suzy Chase, she's just a home cook in New York City sitting at her dining room table talking to cookbook authors.
Hawa Hassan: My name is Hawa Hassan, and I'm here to chat about my new cookbook In Bibi's Kitchen.
Suzy Chase: If you like this podcast, please be sure to share it with a friend. I'm always looking for new people to enjoy Cookery by the Book now on with the show. So your cookbook is based on recipes and stories from the kitchens of Bibi's. What does the term Bibi mean?
Hawa Hassan: So Bibi is the word for grandmother in Swahili, which is the most spoken language on the Indian ocean. On the African side of it.
Suzy Chase: Give us a little overview of the cookbook with the eight countries that border the Indian ocean and how you came up with this concept.
Hawa Hassan: Well, In Bibi's Kitchen is meant to be an exploration of recipes and stories through food. It's intended on keeping conversations from our matriarchies, which are our Grandmothers. I spent a long time trying to figure out how to make foods from home. So how do I cook Somali cuisine when I've never been shared written recipes? And when I originally got into the food industry, I knew that along the timeline of me making condiments and you know, who knew what else I'd go on to do. But I knew the one thing I really wanted to do was do as I'd often done, which was speak to women who were older than me, about what they were cooking. It's rare that I got to ask even my own grandmother. What inspires you? What are you most proud of when you look back? Um, so it's really just their stories and their words and their recipes that are in this book and are the backbone of In Bibi's Kitchen.
Suzy Chase: So describe the complicated content process. How did you go about testing these recipes?
Hawa Hassan: Originally? When we approached the Bibi's, we knew that we wouldn't get a full recipe from someone. So what we did is we used my iPhone to record. We used Skype to record, we used what's app to record. So it was a lot of recording, a lot of just watching. Was it a pinch? Was it a heavy pinch? Was it a can of coconut milk? That's how we got there.
Suzy Chase: How long did that take to examine what they were doing and then get it down on paper?
Hawa Hassan: Honestly, not long at all. I think the thing that we were most concerned about was just making sure that the recipes were true to what the Bibi's did you even got the feel for the recipe when you were in their company.
Suzy Chase: So if you really examine it, this is an old fashioned cookbook that has nothing to do with trends.
Hawa Hassan: Absolutely. Our intent was not to talk about what's new and next, but to really focus on how do we preserve these stories? How do we tell big stories from women who inspire us through recipes?
Suzy Chase: Tell me about where you grew up and your early life growing up.
Hawa Hassan: I was born in Somalia, in a city called Mogidishu in the late eighties. In 1991, Somalia was experiencing civil war. And so in the midst of that, my family and I packed up moving to Kenya. And after the first year of being there, my mother was presented with an opportunity to have myself accompany a group of people who were moving to Seattle, Washington. And so with the hope of them joining me, my mother sent me ahead. I ended up living with this group of Somali people for quite some time in Seattle. Sponsorship, never came through for my family and ultimately they ended up relocating to Norway and Oslo in Norway, and now they live there. They'd been there for a little over 20 years and that's where I call home. But yeah, we were separated for quite some time because they didn't have the capacity to come in the mid-nineties.
Suzy Chase: Since you were separated from your mom for so many years at such a young age, do certain recipes help bring back fond memories of your whole family being together?
Hawa Hassan: Oh, absolutely. I mean the Somali chapter is really, an ode to my mother. I think I keep having this conversation in telling people that so much isn't about what we're cooking, but the smell of the spices. And so our Xawaash is what, you know, I could be anywhere in the world and if I smell cinnamon toasting, I'm like, oh my God, it smells like my mom's house.
Suzy Chase: The other night, I made your recipe for Somali beef stew on page 93 and the Xawaash spice mix on page 74. Can you describe the Xawaash spice mix?
Hawa Hassan: Yeah. Xawaash is a bunch of warm spices put together. The word Xawaash comes from Yemen, but Xawaash for Somalis is really inspired by the Indian Ocean. So it's, cardamom cumin, cinnamon, whole cloves. You toast all of these together. You grind them together. Then you toss in some turmeric, stir it all together, all of the flavors really dance off of each other making your dish just warm and sweet, but then yet savory. And I think that really speaks to Somali cuisine and not just Somalia, but most of the country along the Indian ocean in that our foods are really focused on, warm spices and not sour spices. And so it adds to our food in that way.
Suzy Chase: So of all the countries on the entire African continent, Somalia has the longest coastline at the tip of the horn of Africa. You featured Ma Halima and she lives in Minneapolis. Can you tell us a little bit about her?
Hawa Hassan: So Ma Halima is a woman that I met in Minnesota. She's someone whose story is just as wide as the continent is. She had lived in Saudi Arabia, had been born Ethiopia. I had grown up in Somalia, had moved to Minnesota, her husband and her children put her kids through school. But Ma Halima used to have a restaurant in Minnesota. She's what all Somali women are for me, boisterous a little direct, loving, inclusive. She just welcomed us with open arms, myself and Victoria who actually shot that day for us.
Hawa Hassan: What's one takeaway that you learned from the women that you interviewed for this cookbook,
Hawa Hassan: That nothing is permanent. That life is about heaps and flows and not to get too attached. I really walked away having a greater sense of what purpose meant and how I could better use time. And that was from just sitting around in their kitchens outside or inside having those conversations and interviewing them.
Suzy Chase: You brought up a really interesting point, the void in the book market for cookbooks that feature African food. Can you talk a little bit about that?
Hawa Hassan: You know, Africa is 54 countries from my perspective, the way that Africa has been written about is that it's one country. And the way that stories are shared about Africa is as it's one place and Africa is not a country, Africa is a continent. And for me, what was my main inspiration outside of speaking to women was to really use the opportunity of being given a book deal, to introduce eight countries. And what better way to use the Indian ocean as a thread, right? Because what I want to do anyways is to demystify that Africa is far away and the foods of Africa are hard to cook and it's still such a mystery to so many people.
Suzy Chase: So on that note, I'm glad you brought up the fact that so many cookbooks are written and photographed by people who aren't from that place. I guess it's maybe an offshoot of cultural appropriation?
Hawa Hassan: I think it depends right? What the context is. I think anyone can write foods from wherever they enjoy writing them from, but it's just, what is the intent behind it? And how are you being homage to that culture? And are you acknowledging that these foods do not belong to you, but to someone else and then like, is there someone else better than you to tell that story? That's closer to the story, right? So I, I really want to get away from the idea that people can't make foods from other places, because I think that would be a disservice to everyone who enjoys food, but we should start getting closer to the idea of who is telling these stories. What perspective are they telling them from? Is there someone closer to the story that can tell the story
Suzy Chase: Now to my segment called Last Night's Dinner, where I'm dying to hear this, so what did you have last night for dinner?
Hawa Hassan: So I had miso salmon on a bed of white rice and I shared this with my partner. I don't want you to think I had all of this myself. And we had a half of a chicken, on pureed potatoes and kale salad from Walter's in my neighborhood.
Suzy Chase: I thought you were going to say peanuts cause you just got off a flight.
Hawa Hassan: No!
Suzy Chase: I thought you're going to be like... A diet Coke and some peanuts.
Hawa Hassan: No. So I got home late last night and then he ordered it. And then I had a glass of Chenin Blanc from South Africa.
Suzy Chase: Oh, nice. Perfect.
Hawa Hassan: Yeah. They're not serving food or anything on airplanes anymore, so that's okay for me.
Suzy Chase: Yeah, that's fine. Where can we find you on the web and social media?
Hawa Hassan: My company Basbaas is available at basbaassauces.com. And I am available @HawaHassan on Instagram and you can follow Basbaas Sauces on IG if you want as well.
Suzy Chase: So I saw you like three years ago, speaking at Dean and DeLuca and I bought my first jar of Basbaas there.
Hawa Hassan: Tou were an early, early adopter. Exactly. That was when we had the bad branding and everything. Thank you.
Suzy Chase: Where can we find it? Just on the website?
Hawa Hassan: Yeah. So right now we're focusing all of our attention on direct to consumer, but stay tuned because we've got more flavors coming, a new design coming, and hopefully we'll continue to create condiments from the continent.
Suzy Chase: This cookbook brings home the fact that we all speak the language of food. Thanks so much Hawa for coming on Cookery by the Book podcast.
Hawa Hassan: Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate you. This is fun.
Outro: Subscribe over on CookerybytheBook.com. And thanks for listening to the number one cookbook podcast, Cookery by the Book.
