Izzeldin Bukhari
Palestinian chef
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Izzeldin Bukhari (Arabic: عزالدين البخاري) is a Palestinian chef from Jerusalem. In 2017, he founded Sacred Cuisine, which organizes food tours, supper clubs, cooking classes, and other events to promote vegetarian Palestinian cuisine.
Izzeldin Bukhari | |
|---|---|
| عزالدين البخاري | |
| |
| Born | 1984 or 1985 (age 40–41)[1] |
| Occupation |
|
| Known for | founding Sacred Cuisine |
| Website | https://sacred-cuisine.com |
Early life and family
In 1616, Bukhari's paternal ancestors immigrated to the Old City of Jerusalem from Bukhara, Uzbekistan, to open a zawiya or Sufi religious center. Several of his family members, including his father, were Sufi sheikhs.[2][3][4] One of his ancestors is Imam Muhammad Ismail al-Bukhari.[5] His mother was born in Gaza after his maternal grandparents were displaced there from Ramleh in 1948.[6]
Bukhari was born around 1985.[1][7] He grew up in Jerusalem with 3 sisters, interacting with people from various backgrounds and countries who had come to visit his family's zawiya. In 2010, Bukhari's father died.[5] Bukhari is based in Jerusalem but has family members living in the Gaza Strip, including his sister.[8][9][6] By the end of October 2023, 31 of his family members had been killed and others had been injured by Israeli airstrikes in the Gaza war.[9][7] He has spoken with news media about the difficulty of maintaining contact with his family in Gaza and worrying for their safety.[9][7]
Career
Bukhari is a self-taught chef.[4][5] In 2009, he moved to Arizona in the United States.[2] Away from home, he missed Palestinian food and began cooking it with spices mailed to him by his family.[2][5]
In 2015, Bukhari returned to Jerusalem.[5] Two years later, he founded Sacred Cuisine, a company that organizes food tours, supper clubs, cooking classes, and other events centered on vegetarian Palestinian cuisine.[5][2][3] One of his most popular tours explores the Old City of Jerusalem and features foods like hummus, kras beid, freekeh, za'atar, mutabbaq, and halva.[5][3][10][2] Past tour participants include Jamie Oliver.[11][2] Through Sacred Cuisine, Bukhari promotes Somi or vegetarian Palestinian food[12][5] and disseminates his knowledge about Palestinian food history, culture, and produce.[13][3][11] According to Bukhari, traditional Palestinian cuisine is primarily vegetarian.[2][5][14] He creates vegetarian versions of dishes; for example, he replaces the meat in mahashi with cauliflower, walnuts, and mushrooms and replaces the chicken in mussakhan with eggplant and mushrooms.[13][11] Around 2024, Bukhari began hosting Sacred Cuisine events in Europe.[12]
In 2020, Bukhari was featured in "Colonising the Tastebuds", a short documentary created by Mondoweiss and Baladi – Rooted Resistance.[15] The film shows him talking about struggling to access food grown by Palestinian farmers due to the Israeli occupation,[2] a topic he has also discussed elsewhere.[16] Additionally, he discusses food as a key part of his identity as a Palestinian: “Just talking about food can really reflect [...] the history of the Palestinian in this land. They [Israel] are trying to teach us to give up on being Palestinian. And we are saying ‘I can’t.’"[17][2] Bukhari published the story ""The Ballad of Lulu and Amina"—from Jerusalem to Gaza" in the anthology, Daybreak in Gaza: Stories of Palestinian Lives and Cultures (2024).[6] In it he recounts the time he tried to take his cat from Jerusalem through an Israeli checkpoint to his sister's wedding in Gaza.[18][19][20]