At Cous Cous Fest 2024, an annual food festival in San Vito Lo Capo, Sicily, we were presented with an alternative to the horrors of war we see every day on our screens. The festival’s theme was ‘Grains of Peace’, a cooking competition that saw chefs from all over the world, including Ukraine, Russia, Palestine and Israel competing side by side.
The south of Italy and particularly Sicily has been on the frontline of Europe’s so-called migrant crisis over the last decade. On an almost daily basis, desperate people risk their lives to cross the treacherous Mediterranean Sea from North Africa for a better life in Europe. So often we hear of the tragic consequences for those who risked everything and lost it all, never making ground on the island of Lampedusa.
It is a crisis that Itay’s far right political parties have leveraged with great success of late, managing to secure a majority in government thanks to their fear mongering over illegal immigration. Indeed, demographically, Italy has changed drastically over the last few years, it is now a far more international and cosmopolitan country than it was a decade ago, and yet there is a certain reluctance on the part of ordinary Italians to accept the changing face of their country, a fear almost. A baseless one it must be said.
And as food is central to everything in Italy, you can trace the historical evidence on your plate, whether it’s spaghetti, with its origins in Asia, or chickpea soup with its origins in Turkey and Syria
For as much as Italy has a reputation for resistance to immigration and a backwards xenophobia, the reality is that Italy, as usual, is ahead of the rest of Europe.
Italy is a country with a rich and complicated history going back way before the Romans dominated the known world. The French, Spanish, Austrians, Arabs, Goths, Normans… have all ruled over parts of the peninsula and all brought their own cultural influences on what was to become modern Italy. And the strength of Italians was that they adapted, they absorbed, they integrated. That’s why you have so much variance in the appearance of Italians – dark and swarthy in the South, blonde and blue-eyed in the north, and everything in between.
Cous Cous Fest 2024
Italy stands as an example of perfect integration over time, the country’s culture has been enhanced by so many diverse influences. And as food is central to everything in Italy, you can trace the historical evidence on your plate, whether it’s spaghetti, with its origins in Asia, or chickpea soup with its origins in Turkey and Syria. ‘Italian cuisine’ is an international cuisine, which explains its global popularity, but perhaps that is sometimes forgotten.
Today, if you go to San Vito Lo Capo, in Trapani, in Sicily, you can see a celebration of this cultural diversity in food at the annual Cous Cous Fest that sees chefs competing for the prestigious title of ‘best couscous recipe’, judged in five rounds of cook-offs by prominent food critics.
Couscous was brought to the island of Sicily during the Muslim Conquest of 827 to 902, where it has remained ever since, becoming absorbed into the cuisine of this part of the island, and indeed becoming a staple that signifies a proud history for the people of Trapani. In the local dialect it is known as cùscusu.
For the last 24 years, Cous Cous Fest, has been held in this part of Sicily during the final days of September. It welcomes over 80,000 guests over the course of a week with a wide range of music, entertainment and food events.
The centerpiece of the festival though, is the international cooking competition – the Bia Cous Cous World Championships, where teams from all over the world compete to be crowned winners of Cous Cous Fest. The finals this year featured teams from ten countries, China, Eritrea, Italy, Morocco, Médecins Sans Frontières, Palestine, Russia, Tunisia, Ukraine and Israel.
During the cooking competition, the Russian and Ukrainian chefs were dancing together backstage, the Israeli and Palestinian chefs were hugging and laughing.
The winning team was from Morocco, made up of Chaoui Hanae, an entrepreneur chef who opened La Medina in Milan, a bistro specialising in Moroccan cuisine and pastries, and Mourad Dakir, chef and owner of Maison Touareg, the first Moroccan restaurant in Milan. The team representing China came in second, while third place went to the team representing Médecins Sans Frontières.
More Than a Competition
You could say, that in this competition, there were no losers. In a time when the world is riven with war and genocide – streamed constantly on our phones – it can be easy to lose hope in humanity. The sight of Ukrainian and Russian teams and Israeli and Palestinian teams cooking side by side in the spirit of togetherness should not be undervalued. During the cooking competition, the Russian and Ukrainian chefs were dancing together backstage, the Israeli and Palestinian chefs were hugging and laughing.
‘It’s a difficult moment for Palestine, and a difficult moment also for me,’ Shady Hasbun, an Arezzo-based Palestinian chef tells The Ethicalist, ‘… .to be here and feel happy, trying to create something that’s interesting for all of us. For me the most important thing is to bring Palestinian culture to all the people here present in San Vito Lo Capo. So, it’s a good moment to let all people know our culture all over the world, because for San Vito Lo Capo, it goes all over the world.’
In his first round of the championships against a chef from China, Shady cooked kofteh and courgette on a bed of maftoul – a type of Palestinian couscous made from wheat that is typically larger and more irregular in shape than traditional couscous – and sesame paste, a recipe his grandma used to make in Ramallah.
‘If I think that I am competing, let’s say, with Israel, it’s difficult, it’s certainly not easy, for me and my partner Samia Sowwan’ he says. ‘But we remind ourselves that we are here as people, as humans, so we are trying not to talk about politics. We’re not talking about peace, because peace is also a political thing, we talk about food, we talk about culture.’
Shady, who moved to Italy in 1991 – and is one of millions of Palestinians watching the horror unfold from afar – still has family and friends in Gaza.
‘All the people in Palestine, my friends and family, they are waiting for what, we don’t know.’ he says. ‘They feel like the world has abandoned them. They live every day as if it is the last day of their life.’
‘Peace is possible between people, between one person and another. With the problems we have in Palestine, it’s not easy, because a lot of things have happened. It’s one year since the 7th of October, and many, many mistakes have been made since then.’
Hanna Yerfimova, representing Ukraine, runs restaurant Veranda in Milan. She explains the complicated relationship between her country and the country that is waging war on it.
‘My mother is Ukrainian, but my father is Russian, and there are many families like that. Our people are close, they are intertwined, and that’s why this war is so unfathomable for us. It’s like a war in a family. It is not the people who want his war, not in Ukraine, nor in Russia, it is one man, one government who waging this war in my country.
‘The war is not going to finish any time soon,’ says Yerfimova. ‘And it’s not going to finish well. For sure there will be no winners. I can’t allow myself to even think about it, so for now we cook, we dance, and we eat.’
Tze’ela Rubinstein, representing Israel adds: ‘We must remember that we are lucky that we live in a democracy in Israel. Every four years we can change our direction. So, we have to get through this period trust that we can change things.’
While neither Shady nor Tze’ela reached the finals, both were invited to compete again next year.
When she is told that it is inspiring to see her and Palestinian chef Shady joking and laughing like friends, she replies. ‘That’s because we are friends.’
