Food is integral to the book Crescent by Diana Abu-Jaber. Where there are no words there is food. When a character is unable to speak, they eat. The basis of Han and Sirine’s relationship is the preparation and consumption of food. From that first morning they made baklava together there was no turning back. When you frame a story around a main character who is a chef, it is impossible to avoid food and Abu-Jaber leans into this whole-heartedly. Even at the end of the book she spends time describing what’s bubbling on the stove instead of what Han has to say on the phone. Food is the easiest part of a culture to share. All a person must do is eat, they do not need to learn a new language or travel to another country. Nadia’s cafe is a hub for the Arab American community in California. The yearning for a taste of home or the taste of one they love’s home is what brings the people together in a way that nothing else can do to such an extent. Food holds memories. A single bite has the power to transport its taster back in time to places long forgotten. When Sirine is making the baklava, before Han shows up, she remembers when she would make the dessert with her mother and father. This is the most tangible description of her parents we get in the whole book. The rest of her memories of them are fragmented dreams or imagined from photographs but when she’s preparing the baklava she can see them clearly. And it is a happy memory, her parents were so often gone but this food brought them together. It gave them a purpose to spend time around one another. The common cause of cooking unites people, whether it be in friendship, romantic and familial.
(Word Count 309)
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