Salha "Mama" Bobo

Born in 1907^[2] in Aleppo, Ottoman Syria, to a Jewish family. She lived there until the age of 14.^[3] She emigrated to the United States as a teenager and lived in New York City, Jacksonville, Florida,^{[citation needed]} and Macon, Georgia, where her grandmother found her a husband when she was 16. She married Ralph Bobo,^[3] an Egyptian of Jewish heritage,^[4] and started in the grocery business with her husband in Georgia in 1922.^[2] The couple settled in Tampa in 1947,^[3] particularly in the Ybor City neighborhood. After they moved to Ybor City, the couple bought the Blue Ribbon Market.^[2] In 1949^[3] three years later, Ralph died,^[2] and Salha continued to run the store with her children,^[3] later expanding to open a second store and three mini-marts.^[2] The Bobo family bought the property for the Blue Ribbon Supermarket in 1967, and later sold it to Austrian developers after operating it for decades.^[5]

In Tampa, she became locally famous as a cookbook author and businessperson.^[4] She has been the feature of numerous print and TV news stories, as well as a documentary about her life^{[citation needed]} and an oral history memoir Mashala, The Life and Times of Salha Bobo.^[6] Her cooking, blending Syrian and Southern American cuisine, has been covered in publications such as the Tampa Tribune. In 2002, her first grandchild published the cookbook Mezza & More, Syrian Fare With a Southern Flair, including hundreds of her recipes.^[3]

Bobo died in 2001. She was noted for remembering the birthdays of all of her children, grandchildren, and her 50 great-grandchildren even in her old age.^[2] She had seven children.^[3] As of 2005, the Bobo family had 100 relatives in the Tampa Bay area.^[3] Her great-grandson is actor Jonah Bobo.^[4]