Food For Thought

A Palestinian bearing good news is, well, news. So much misery occurs in the lands they and the Israelis fight over that the Palestinians' image is inextricable from refugees, poverty, tanks and suicide bombings. Salah Jamal, however, gives a different flavor to what it means to be Palestinian. His book Arab Aroma, Recipes and Stories (Zendrera Zariquiey; 211 pages) takes readers to a place that reveals more about a culture than failed negotiations: the kitchen.

Jamal grew up in Nablus, the son of a shopkeeper, but left after the 1967 war to study medicine in England. Not yet 18, he...