'There is beauty, grace and love in our kitchens too'

We think of refugees as helpless people; sometimes stateless; waiting listlessly for their world to return to normal.

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There is so much more to the picture, says author, chef and entrepreneur Hawa Hassan, 39 (who was also once a refugee from Somalia).

These camps are places of buzzing kitchens, communal tables, and a steady exchange of ingredients, ideas and hugs as well, she says.

Some of this is reflected in her second book, Setting a Place for Us (May 2025). The collection of 75 recipes features food from across eight countries impacted by conflict: Afghanistan, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Egypt, El Salvador, Iraq, Lebanon, Liberia and Yemen.

Each chapter offers some history and a contemporary overview of the country, profiles of people either displaced or still living there, and eight to 10 recipes.

Among those featured are: Delayla Ndelela, a home chef from Kinshasa in DRC who turned a $20 investment into a bustling beignet (or mikate) pastry business; the Abdel-hamid family from Egypt, who set up the first halal butcher shop in Queens in New York City; Mokhtar Alkhanshali, a Yemeni activist who wants to use his coffee company, Port of Mokha, to offer a counter-narrative to the one of devastation caused by civil unrest.

Some of the recipes are traditional: Afghanistani kishmish panir, or cottage cheese with raisins; DRC's pondu cassava leaf stew. Some celebrate street food: Egypt's beef liver sandwiches; El Salvador's pupusas or flatbreads filled with cabbage slaw. And some are communal, like the maghmour, a Lebanese eggplant-chickpea stew meant to be shared.

Food is political, in that it symbolises human dignity and visibility, says Hassan. She knows what it is like to be on the losing side of that fight.