Written by Palestinian chef Mona Zahed, Tabkha: Recipes from Under the Rubble is a cookbook shaped under extraordinary circumstances, compiled on her phone from a tent in southern Gaza.
Through twenty-two ancestral recipes, Mona gathers the flavours and traditions of Gazan home cooking, dishes that were once prepared in her catering kitchen in northern Gaza for family celebrations and community gatherings. Each recipe carries not only ingredients and method, but memory, generosity, and a deep sense of home.
The book is accompanied by illustrations from a collective of artists, creating a visual layer that sits alongside the recipes, bringing together food and storytelling in a way that feels both intimate and expansive.
Published by Slingshot Books in collaboration with Coffees for Gaza, the book also serves as a cultural archive, preserving recipes and voices that continue despite immense hardship. The second edition includes two additional recipes, alongside artwork by Palestinian artists Aya Ghanameh and Aliaa Betawi.
As Mona writes, “We are actually cooking from the rubble, whether it be the rubble of destroyed houses or the rubble of our souls.”
More than a cookbook, it is an invitation to cook, to remember, and to honour a cuisine that insists on life.
