The Best Breakfast Sandwiches in Gaza
The Best Breakfast Sandwiches in Gaza
Sandwiches in Palestine
In an office in the heart of downtown Gaza City, it’s Thursday morning, the weekend is nearly here, and there is a plate of DIY breakfast sandwiches.
I am in a co-working space and tech startup incubator that my husband oversees and where I occasionally volunteer. While regular power cuts and the sound of horse hooves clapping on the streets alongside cars remind me of where I am, in many ways, Gaza Sky Geeks resembles a tech hub you might stumble upon in Paris or Brooklyn. You can park yourself on a colorful chair and listen to free workshops on Blockchain. The graffiti murals adorning the walls mix Arabic calligraphy and coding jokes. And there is always food in the office.
In particular, Thursday morning team breakfast, or “Zad Al Khair madness,” as some of the staff has taken to calling it in tribute to the name of the restaurant it comes from, has become a tradition at Gaza Sky Geeks. The carb component is a fluffy pita. For your fillings, there are an array of egg dishes, including a hash-browns-meets-scrambled eggs combo in which the small chunks of potato are perfectly soft and salted and evenly distributed.
The Gazan take on shakshuka, the tomato egg dish ubiquitous across the region, is more like scrambled eggs with diced tomatoes and onions and spices. As add-ons, you have a Gazan guacamole topped with olive oil—or what the Gazans call avocado salad—eggplant in fried and pureed forms, a spicy tomato salsa, and of course, it’s never too early in the day for hummus. It’s washed down with sugary mint tea or sugary Nescafe.
As Hani, a fiercely organized recent college graduate, lays out the different dishes, I ask if I should grab plates for everyone. He shoots me back a perplexed look: “Why would we need plates?” he asks, and I soon see what he means. The bread serves as both plate and dishing utensil as we start to assemble our sandwiches. The table quickly becomes a flurry of hungry hands, but everyone knows everyone else’s favorite, which means Said will always get a healthy portion of his beloved eggplants and I will not miss out on the guacamole.
Gazans take a great deal of pride in their food, which is considered some of the freshest and most flavorful in the region. But, as is the case in many places, preparing it rarely seems about the complexity of the cuisine or artistry of the presentation. What makes it most delicious is its ability to bring us all to the table, even when times are rough.