Last weekend, I had the opportunity to tag along
with my host mom and her friends as they attended a community Syrian refugee
lunch. After signing up in advance, each person paid €15 at the door and
entered a small kitchen nestled in Mouraria, Lisbon. We then sat down at
community-style long benches and tables and had various traditional Syrian
dishes, including hummus, tabbouleh, and za’atar on thin flatbread as appetizers; chicken and cooked vegetables with rice for the main course; and a few desserts,
some that are traditionally Portuguese, such as salame de chocolate, and some that are traditionally Syrian, such
as a rice pudding. There were about five or six Syrian refugees cooking for this
lunch, including one family that had just arrived two months ago. The kids from
that family mingled around the room and curiously looked at the Portuguese kids
who came for the meal. The room quickly became so crowded that you couldn’t
help but talk with the people you sat next to, even if you had just met them.
The goal of the lunch was to financially help new refugees, and also to help refugees who are interested finding jobs in the restaurant business, since many of the attendees were involved in or owned restaurants. It also helps them meet Portuguese people whom they might be normally segregated from geographically within Lisbon. The kitchen rotates cuisines each lunch; for example, it has hosted Iraqi refugees and Eritrean refugees for lunches in the past, among others. The organization and project received more attention recently, especially after the president of Portugal, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, sat down for one of these lunches in February. The most important part of this lunch, in my opinion, was the exchange of ideas and smiles and, as the name of the organization states, to “Make Food Not War.”
To give a little bit of context, Mouraria is a neighborhood highly populated by immigrants. It is the only real barrio, or neighborhood, that I’ve been to in Lisbon that I would classify as racially or ethnically diverse. Historically, it began as an Arab or “Moorish” neighborhood, much like the neighboring Alfama. This is because, after the twelfth century Christian takeover of the city, both Jewish people and Arab Moors were forced to live in confined neighborhoods around the famous castle, Castelo São Jorge. Although this is no longer the case, it remains the most multicultural neighborhood in the city. Today, Mouraria’s immigrants are mostly from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, China, Mozambique, and various other African countries. The area is old, with crumbling buildings and facades, and is certainly not known for its beautiful buildings, but rather as a run-down part of town filled with poor immigrants.
The phrase that "food is the way to a man’s heart" is outdated, but it’s certainly the way to my heart, and the simplest way to the heart of integration and trust-building in any community. The Portuguese people love their long meals with friends and family, and so, especially in this society, this idea of refugee lunches has the potential to really change the mindsets and hearts of the Portuguese people, who make up the majority of the population of Lisbon, towards immigrants and refugees. In the homogeneous Lisbon that I have seen, this sort of integration and exposure to other minority cultures is greatly needed, not only in Mouraria, but all throughout the city.
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