Midnight breadmaking in Gaza
Here’s a short clip of a young Palestinian man hand-tossing and baking traditional Palestinian Taboon Saj bread on a griddle around midnight. Around him one can hear a symphony of generators, which power basic appliances during 8 hour rotating electricity cuts. At night residents of the city escape outdoors to beat the suffocating indoor heat until the electricity comes back on.
Incidentally, after this visit, Yousuf thinks he’s a dough tossing expert-and has managed to knock down two cups, one vase, one pot…and the list goes on 
07/26/2010 at 10:15 am
The people in the video look kind of tired. Is it hard to be up at midnight working on food? (I know it’d be hard for me, but I’m an early bird.)
07/26/2010 at 5:25 pm
How are you able to load up video? I would imagine the baud rate there would be really slow! And there’s the inaccessibility of reliable electricity.
07/27/2010 at 4:38 pm
when you get a chance could you post a recipe for taboon?
07/27/2010 at 4:45 pm
Indeed-it took me like two days of working around the power outages and slow internet; when the power was on for the night I kept my laptop on and uploaded it to blip.tv
It was also recorded on my flip which makes the turnaround much easier.
07/27/2010 at 4:48 pm
Indeed. It took a couple of days or working around the power outages and inconsistent internet connectivity. In the end I managed to upload it at night (when we had electricity) by keeping my laptop on (the outages are in consistent rotating 8 hour blocks). It was also recorded on my flip, which makes turnaround and conversion much easier
07/27/2010 at 4:50 pm
I’m sure they are exhausted, I didn’t ask them how long they’d been working but I plan to go back to request the recipe (though I can’t imagine I’d be able to hand-toss it so expertly that way!)
07/27/2010 at 4:50 pm
Absolutely!
07/28/2010 at 2:18 am
Salam Laila
I would die to eat one of this delecious bread.
I love your blog and I enjoyed reading thru your posts.
Thanks for posting the video, I expected the old fashoin taboon, the one that is built from mud and hey
I think we call the bread in the video saaj bread or shraak. I’ve seen my mom making it several times when I was little. it’s so thin and so good.
Please send my salaam to the wonderful people of Gaza..
Barak Allah fee Sumoodekum
and a bunch of roses from me to you and your lovely family.
07/30/2010 at 4:50 am
You are quite right! My mistake-it is in fact saj and not taboon!