Welcome to the Fringe, Palestine is a four day festival organised by local independent artists to bring art and culture from Palestine to Portobello’s Town Hall as part of Edinburgh’s Fringe. Many of the artists have worked regularly in Palestine and the Middle East over many decades, building relationships over this time that they can now use to great effect. The event boasts a wide range of art forms from dance to comedy to theatre to music in all its forms.

Today’s lunchtime event, ‘Gaza Food and Stories‘, sees storyteller and author Diline Abushaban telling us a little of her family history, Palestinian customs and culture and the spirit of the people giving a live demonstration of how she makes Palestinian staple, dagga. (If you decide to check out the recipe for yourself, note that Abushaban uses both dill seeds and fresh dill in her version).

Del is a quietly charming, self-effacing raconteur who wears her heritage and her personal history lightly. She lives in Scotland now but also introduces us to her family, explaining that many of them live in occupied territories. She describes her feelings of impotence, trying to keep in contact with family amidst continual power outages, displacements and bombing but amidst her rage and impotence, she found strength through creating art.
Her cookery demonstration is both interesting but also provides a clever pretext to tell us more about her life back home. How she came by one of the staples of Palestinian cooking: the pestle and mortar. Her hunt for dill seeds when she came here. The memories triggered by the fragrances released as she chops chillies, garlic, fistfuls of dill, squeezes the lemon and adds lashings of Palestinian olive oil.
Her grace and generosity in the face of her appalling experiences are extraordinary. She speaks movingly of the resilience and hope of the Palestinian people and offers us some small hope that amidst the ongoing atrocities, even our own small acts of remembrance and honour, like making dagga (or buying her forthcoming cookbook!), can all make a bit of a difference.

Welcome to the Fringe, Palestine finishes today. We hope to see it return next year in a more peaceful context.

‘Gaza Food and Stories‘ has finished its Fringe run