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At the corner of Avenue de la Gare and Avenue Juste-Olivier in Lausanne, there are two stories that, at first glance, seem to touch only by chance. On one side stands the Great Synagogue of Lausanne, a building from 1910, erected thanks to the benefactor Daniel Iffla-Osiris, a French Jew, philanthropist, and a man whose chosen name evokes Osiris, the Egyptian god of the underworld, death, and resurrection.

Across the street, or very close to this historic building, is Qasti, a Lebanese restaurant. In Lebanese Arabic, Qasti means “my story.” It has no connection with the French language, even though the restaurant is located in francophone Lausanne and its creator has strong ties with Paris. Qasti is the gastronomic story of Alan Geaam, the celebrated chef of Lebanese origin and the first chef of Lebanese origin in France to receive a Michelin star.

His biography almost explains the name of the restaurant by itself. As a young man, he arrived in Paris in the late 1990s with no money, no language, and no secure place in society. He worked physical jobs, washed dishes, learned by watching others, read cookbooks, and gradually built his own culinary language. Today, he stands behind a small empire of restaurants, but what matters most is that his personal story has not disappeared from his food. On the contrary, it has become its main seasoning.

Since we were staying in that neighborhood, and since we love Arabic cuisine, we went to Qasti for dinner. The menu offers an option for two people that includes four cold and four hot starters. We chose baba ganoush, tabbouleh, labneh, moussaka, kebbe mehlie, kafta meatballs, arayes kafta, makanekh, and batata. We skipped the falafel.

And it was precisely the falafel that reminded me of what I had wanted to forget.

All my life, I had said that falafel was an Arab specialty. Then my colleague George Frank from Israel, wanting to convince me that it was an Israeli specialty, bought a special mold for shaping falafel. There was something affectionate in that gesture, almost boyish. As if a dispute over the origin of a dish could be settled with a kitchen tool, a smile, and a portion of crispy chickpea balls.

It would have been beautiful if I had remained only with that romantic memory. But I could not.

That day, I saw a video from Gaza that brought me back to a reality from which it is difficult to escape. I could no longer think only about whether falafel was Arab, Israeli, Egyptian, Lebanese, or Palestinian. Suddenly, that small dish, which should bring people together around a table, became a reminder of everything that separates them when politics, violence, and hatred enter the space where there should be bread, spices, and conversation.

I asked the waiter how they lived with the Jews from the synagogue across the street. He answered calmly: “We greet each other. We have no problems.”

Perhaps that sentence contains the most important part of the story.

People can live next to one another. They can greet each other. They can sit in the same neighborhood, open restaurants and synagogues, walk the same streets, and share the same city. The problem is not that someone is Jewish, Arab, Muslim, Christian, or anything else. The problem begins when a state, an army, an ideology, or historical trauma claims the right to destroy the life of another person in the name of one identity.

That is why Gaza hurts me so deeply. Not as a political question, but as a human one. As a question of children, families, homes, food, medicine, fear, and helplessness. As a question of whether we are still capable of recognizing another person’s suffering as suffering, even when it does not belong to our people, our faith, or our history.

That is why the words of the Egyptian national football team coach, Hossam Hassan, sound so simple and so heavy: “Whoever does not feel the suffering of the Palestinian people is not human.”

Perhaps that is the truest sentence I took with me from Lausanne. Not from a museum, not from a church, not from a synagogue, not even from a restaurant, but from an ordinary moment at the table, between baba ganoush, tabbouleh, and the falafel we did not order.

Because food usually serves to help us swallow something. But sometimes it reminds us that there are things we must never swallow in silence.

♥

Qasti, falafel i ono što ne možemo da progutamo

Na uglu Avenije de la Gare i Avenije Juste-Olivier u Lozani nalaze se dve priče koje se, na prvi pogled, samo slučajno dodiruju. Sa jedne strane je Velika sinagoga u Lozani, građevina iz 1910. godine, podignuta zahvaljujući dobrotvoru Danielu Iffla-Osirisu, francuskom Jevrejinu, filantropu i čoveku čije izabrano ime priziva Ozirisa, egipatskog boga podzemnog sveta, smrti i vaskrsenja.

Preko puta, ili sasvim blizu te istorijske građevine, nalazi se restoran libanske kuhinje Qasti. Ime restorana na libanskom arapskom znači „moja priča“. Nema nikakve veze sa francuskim jezikom, iako se restoran nalazi u frankofonoj Lozani, a njegov tvorac ima snažne veze sa Parizom. Qasti je gastronomska priča Alana Geaama, čuvenog kuvara libanskog porekla, prvog kuvara libanskog porekla u Francuskoj koji je osvojio Mišlenovu zvezdu.

Njegova biografija gotovo da sama objašnjava naziv restorana. Kao mladić je krajem devedesetih stigao u Pariz, bez novca, bez jezika i bez sigurnog mesta u društvu. Radio je fizičke poslove, prao sudove, učio gledajući druge, čitao kuvare i polako gradio sopstveni kulinarski jezik. Danas iza njega stoji mala imperija restorana, ali ono što je najvažnije jeste da u njegovoj hrani nije nestala lična priča. Naprotiv, ona je postala glavni začin.

Pošto smo stanovali u tom kraju, a volimo arapsku kuhinju, otišli smo na večeru u Qasti. U meniju postoji ponuda za dve osobe koja podrazumeva četiri hladna i četiri topla predjela. Izabrali smo baba ganuš, tabule, labne, musaku, kebe mehlie, ćufte od kefta mesa, arayes kefta, makanekh i batatu. Preskočili smo falafel.

A upravo me je falafel podsetio na ono što sam želeo da zaboravim.

Celog života sam govorio da je falafel arapski specijalitet. Onda je moj kolega George Frank iz Izraela, želeći da me ubedi da je to izraelski specijalitet, kupio posebnu modlu za oblikovanje falafela. Bilo je u tome nečeg dragog, skoro dečačkog. Kao da se spor oko porekla jednog jela može rešiti kuhinjskim alatom, osmehom i porcijom hrskavih kuglica od leblebija.

Bilo bi lepo da sam ostao samo na tom romantičnom sećanju. Ali nisam mogao.

Tog dana sam video snimak iz Gaze koji me je vratio u stvarnost iz koje se teško izlazi. Više nisam mogao da mislim samo o tome da li je falafel arapski, izraelski, egipatski, libanski ili palestinski. Odjednom je to malo jelo, koje bi trebalo da spaja ljude za stolom, postalo podsetnik na sve ono što ih razdvaja kada politika, nasilje i mržnja uđu u prostor u kome bi trebalo da bude hleba, začina i razgovora.

Pitao sam konobara kako žive sa Jevrejima iz sinagoge preko puta. Rekao je mirno: „Javljamo se jedni drugima. Nemamo problema.“

Možda je upravo u toj rečenici najvažniji deo priče.

Ljudi mogu da žive jedni pored drugih. Mogu da se pozdravljaju. Mogu da sede u istom kvartu, da otvaraju restorane i sinagoge, da prolaze istim ulicama, da dele isti grad. Problem nije u tome što je neko Jevrejin, Arapin, musliman, hrišćanin ili bilo šta drugo. Problem nastaje kada država, vojska, ideologija ili istorijska trauma preuzmu pravo da u ime jednog identiteta unište život drugog.

Zato me Gaza toliko boli. Ne kao političko pitanje, već kao ljudsko pitanje. Kao pitanje dece, porodica, kuća, hrane, lekova, straha i nemoći. Kao pitanje toga da li smo uopšte još sposobni da tuđu patnju prepoznamo kao patnju, čak i kada ne pripada našem narodu, našoj veri ili našoj istoriji.

Upravo zato reči selektora egipatske fudbalske reprezentacije Hossama Hassana zvuče tako jednostavno i tako teško: „Ko ne oseća patnju palestinskog naroda, nije čovek.“

Možda je to najtačnija rečenica koju sam poneo iz Lozane. Ne iz muzeja, ne iz crkve, ne iz sinagoge, ne čak ni iz restorana, nego iz jednog običnog trenutka za stolom, između baba ganuša, tabulea i falafela koji nismo poručili.

Jer hrana najčešće služi da nešto progutamo. Ali ponekad nas podseti da postoje stvari koje ne smemo da progutamo ćutke.