Palestinian Recipes, Stories & Culture
Every dish carries a story.
Sumac Files preserves and shares Palestinian culinary heritage through recipes, family memory, pantry knowledge, and the living traditions of a cuisine carried across borders and generations.
More than hummus. More than a recipe.
Palestinian cuisine has its own ingredients, techniques, seasonal rhythms, and regional stories. Sumac Files is built as both a practical cooking resource and a cultural archive: a place to cook, learn, remember, and return.
From the Kitchen
Featured recipes
Meze & Dips
Baba Ghannouj
Fire-roasted eggplant mashed with tahini, yogurt, and lemon — finished with fresh tomato, parsley, and olive oil, and meant to be shared with everyone at the table.
Salad
Fattoush
The bread salad born of thrift and transformed by generosity — bright with sumac, alive with herbs, and finished with the crunch of yesterday's pita.
Soup
Freekeh Soup
A deeply nourishing soup built on smoky roasted green wheat, tender shredded chicken, and golden caramelized onions — warm, complete, and wholesome from the first spoonful to the last.
Know Your Ingredients
The Palestinian pantry
Khubz - خبز
Bread
Bread is utensil, vessel, and centerpiece: pita, taboon, shrak, and other flatbreads carry the meal.
Hail - هيل
Cardamom
Ground or cracked cardamom pods perfume Arabic coffee, tea, broths, rice dishes, spice blends, and desserts.
Jibneh - جبنة
Cheese
Nabulsi, halloumi, and other cheeses appear at breakfast and in desserts like knafeh and katayif.
Qirfa - قرفة
Cinnamon
Cinnamon adds warmth to meat-and-rice dishes, drinks, and desserts across Palestinian cooking.
Living Memory