🐟Havva Ramadan (bite-sized) 🍬

In singer, songwriter, and spoken word artist Havva Ramadan's menu: mum and dad's fish and chippy, bamya (okra stew), and baklava. 

If you enjoyed this - tell someone you think will love it to, and be sure to listen to the full episode, out tomorrow!

To find out more about the project and Savva - head to threefoodmemories.com
Insta - @savvasavas @threefoodmemories

Email us at threefoodmemories@plated.com.au, we'd love to hear from you! 

TFM is produced and edited by Lauren McWhirter with original music by Russell Torrance. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:06

All right, let's get into that first fish and chip food memory. Let's get into that shop.

SPEAKER_00 0:12

So they bought it when they first got married. So my mum and dad, my mum married my dad when she was 18. I think my dad was 24. And they moved from Millwall down to Jittingham and they bought a house in Chatham. And yeah, like I was raised in the fish and chip shop. Like I never went home after school. I would be upstairs. We had a flat upstairs, and I would watch every Disney film to the point where I knew all the words to everything. I would dance to Michael Jackson's videos because I wanted to be like him when I was older, because he didn't. And yeah, like that was, I think I definitely didn't. There was many years that I didn't see my dad very often because we would go to bed, obviously, and then he would be working to I don't know what time I'd see him on Sundays. But I think when I was younger, I didn't appreciate the fact that they were working so hard and working all the hours in the world to provide for us. You know, when you're younger, you're just like, oh, why don't I get to spend time with them? But when I got older, I realised how we were always the first thought. They just was working to be able to provide everything that they felt that we needed.

SPEAKER_01 1:18

Um and and you spoke also about your mum, you're sure she made food for the your mum and dad, they made food for the shop. But you also spoke about she cooked Turkish food. And you know, that was something that happened at the back. What are some of the dishes that she cooked in the shop?

SPEAKER_00 1:34

So that is one of my second food memories, which is bamya, which is one of my favorites, absolute favourites. I think the English word for bamya is okra.

SPEAKER_01 1:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:43

So um she would make kolakas, she would make bamya, she would make molahiya, she would make furam magaruna.

SPEAKER_01 1:50

Like there was nothing that fudd and magaruna is, is tell us what that is.

SPEAKER_00 1:54

It's like it's the translation of it is um oven macaroni, but it's like macaroni. Yeah. Did you did you have that? Yeah. Yeah, so it's like macaroni cheese, but it's not the same as macaroni cheese. Yeah, really thick, long noodle kind of macaroni, and the cheese is not all the way through, it's just at the top, which is why I would always just pick the top. My mum would my mum would hit me. Like I would always pick the top cheese layers and I'd leave all the pasta.

SPEAKER_01 2:22

Your second food memory, and I this is when as soon as you I read this and I was like, bum, yeah. Yes, go for it. I want it right now. In fact, I have some in my fridge that I made the other day because I was inspired by this. Yeah, I made it with tomato. Probably put a bit too much garlic in it this time, but there's loads of onion in it, and it's like it's it's it's a fart machine in in a to eat a tupperware in my fridge. But I love it. But this is not my memory, this is yours, Harva. Tell me about your bum yes.

SPEAKER_00 2:54

So it's just like, you know, when you have this smell that engulfs your house.

SPEAKER_01 2:59

You don't have to. Yes. You know, and it's just like it's the food we're talking about, not the farts.

SPEAKER_00 3:06

No, no, definitely not the farts. Um, there is a there is certain smells that will engulf my house, even to this day, that I'm like, I'm home. You know what I mean? It's I'm I'm home. It gives me that feeling of home. My mum is here, everything's fine because I can smell that she's cooking, and I know that it's something that I'm going to love because I've loved it since I was a child. I travel all over the world for work. Sometimes seven, eight months, at a time my last contract was eight and a half months. And there is no feeling, you know that you're missing home is something that's missing from within you. It's uh it smells, it's tastes, it's heat, it's just it's just a feeling and a sense and a smell. Like even the way that the the food smells, the person smells, your sheets smell, your house smells, there is a sense of home that is missing from you. And if I am in this house, because I still live with my mum other way. I moved back home after my dad passed away to look after her and be with her. So there is a feeling that I get, especially if I'm asleep and I wake up and I can smell bamia. I'm six years old. I'm six years old, I'm protected, everything's fine, you know, life is great. No deadlines, no deadlines, there's nothing. I'm not an adult, I'm good.

SPEAKER_01 4:19

How does she make them?

SPEAKER_00 4:21

So she fries the banya, she chops her heads off, fries the banya. Yeah, yeah, on our thumb, completely. Um women are savage, like people don't understand it. Them women are savage. Have you used to be?

SPEAKER_01 4:35

Are you seeing the way mothers cut onions? Like I sometimes roll over in my grave, and there's like these women on TikTok, these Turkish mothers on TikTok that are cutting onions. But I grew up with that, so I don't know why I'm panicking now.

SPEAKER_00 4:47

My man used to, and like I'm talking that like she was she's 84 now, at 60 years old, she used to get two potato sacks, swing them, and put them on her shoulders and walk to the village, like from the next town. Like, honestly, they're cut, they're made different. They're made different, they're savage. So she would she'll cut the hairs and then she'll fry it, and then she'll make the same sauce that you said, like the tomatoy sauce with the onions, the garlic, paprika, cumin, whatever. And then yeah, make her stew. She puts chicken in hers. Some people put uh red meat in theirs, yeah, but she doesn't like that. And I don't particularly like it like that. I only like it with chicken, yeah. Molahia, on the other hand, I don't like with chicken. I like it with lamb, but um with bumya, definitely chicken.

SPEAKER_01 5:31

Let's finish with something sweet. Do you remember what it was?

SPEAKER_00 5:34

Baklava, too. Baklava. I can never feel baklava, please, please. I could eat a tray of that stuff. It's so sweet, it's sickly. I could eat a tray of it. I wouldn't even get sick of it. I remember baklava because so my dad moved us down to Kent, like I said, before he had children because he didn't want us to grow up in London. And um, my aunties and uncles, whenever they would visit, it would always go to a shop. It's called Yashar Halim in London, and it's like the most known for the best buck clover, and they would always bring it for me. Like everyone in the family knew that I was like a bucklover crazy person. So it was it's got a really beautiful memory of not just the food, but the family members that are not here anymore that used to love bringing it for me because they loved my reaction when they when they did. And even if I went to their houses, they would always have bucklover there ready for me because they knew how much I loved it.