A taste of Baghdad in Albuquerque
On a Friday afternoon in Albuquerque, the kitchen of the Sasson family fills with the fragrance of cardamom, black pepper, turmeric, and slow-cooked onions. A pot of kubbeh simmers on the stove while rice steams beneath a crisp golden crust. At the table, several generations prepare for Shabbat, carrying memories of Baghdad into a New Mexico home.
For the Sassons, food is a family archive. Recipes recall courtyards, markets, synagogue celebrations, and the long journeys that followed the upheaval faced by Iraq’s Jewish community in the middle of the twentieth century. Some dishes have changed with available ingredients, but their emotional meaning remains remarkably steady.
This story of Iraqi Jewish culinary traditions is also a story of adaptation. In Albuquerque, the family has found familiar warmth in a new landscape, adding local chiles, pecans, and Southwestern hospitality to a repertoire shaped by Babylonian Jewish life.
A family journey across changing borders
Leah Sasson remembers learning to cook from her mother, Rachel, who was born in Baghdad and left Iraq as a child. Rachel’s family first went to Israel during the mass departure of Iraqi Jews in the early 1950s. Years later, work and family connections brought them to the United States, where they eventually settled in New Mexico.
The family’s route was common in outline, though every household experienced displacement differently. Iraqi Jews had lived in the region for more than two millennia, developing religious customs, Judeo-Arabic expressions, and a cuisine that reflected the ingredients and cooking methods of Mesopotamia. Leaving meant preserving identity under unfamiliar conditions.
Rachel carried a small collection of handwritten recipes through each move. The pages were never precise. A note might call for “a handful” of rice or “enough” tamarind. Leah learned that the instructions were meant to be demonstrated, tasted, and remembered rather than followed mechanically.
The dishes that carry memory
The family’s Shabbat table often begins with kubbeh hamusta, a soup of semolina shells filled with seasoned meat and surrounded by a tart broth. The sourness comes from lemon, dried lime, or tamarind, depending on what is available. Making the shells takes patience, and younger relatives now gather around the counter to learn how thin the dough should be.
Another treasured dish is t’bit, a whole chicken cooked slowly with rice, tomatoes, garlic, and warm spices. In many Iraqi Jewish homes, t’bit became associated with Shabbat because it could be prepared before sundown and left to cook gently. The result is tender chicken, richly flavored rice, and a browned layer at the bottom of the pot that everyone hopes to claim.
Rachel also makes tepsi baytinijan, a baked dish of eggplant, tomatoes, onions, and meat. Its flavors are direct and generous, built from pantry staples rather than elaborate technique. When eggplant is abundant at a New Mexico farmers market, Leah buys extra and prepares several pans for freezing.
| Dish | Defining flavors | Place in family life |
|---|---|---|
| Kubbeh hamusta | Tamarind, lemon, herbs, semolina | Holiday meals and family teaching |
| T’bit | Rice, chicken, garlic, tomato, baharat | Shabbat and winter gatherings |
| Tepsi baytinijan | Eggplant, onion, tomato, savory spices | Weeknight meals and shared trays |
| Sambusak | Pastry, chickpeas or meat, cumin | Purim, celebrations, and snacks |
| Amba | Pickled mango, mustard, turmeric | Sandwiches, fish, and breakfast plates |
A pantry shaped by Baghdad and New Mexico
Spice blends help connect the family’s Albuquerque kitchen to Iraq. Baharat, a fragrant mixture that can include black pepper, paprika, cinnamon, cumin, coriander, and cardamom, appears in meat, rice, and soups. No two households blend it exactly alike. Leah’s version is less sweet than her mother’s and includes a little smoked paprika, an adjustment inspired by Southwestern cooking.
Amba offers another distinctive connection. The tangy pickled mango condiment is associated with Iraqi Jewish cuisine and is especially welcome beside fried eggplant, fish, eggs, or sabich-style sandwiches. When commercial amba is too mild, the Sassons add mustard seed and cayenne. The family’s current version has a brighter heat than the one Rachel remembers from childhood.
Dates, pomegranates, chickpeas, and rice remain central ingredients. New Mexico contributes its own possibilities: roasted green chile appears beside grilled fish, piñon nuts are sprinkled over rice for special meals, and local honey sometimes replaces part of the date syrup in desserts. These substitutions do not erase the original cuisine. They show how a living food tradition responds to place.
What changes when recipes cross generations
Leah’s children did not grow up in Baghdad or Israel, and their relationship to the cuisine is shaped by Albuquerque. They know the dishes through holiday meals, family stories, and the work of preparing them together. For them, culinary inheritance is active rather than fixed: a recipe survives because someone chooses to make it again.
The younger generation also cooks with modern tools. A pressure cooker shortens the time needed for beans, while a food processor helps prepare kubbeh filling. Rachel once worried that convenience would weaken the tradition. She changed her mind after seeing grandchildren make t’bit on their own.
What matters most, Leah says, is recognizing the dish and understanding when it belongs on the table. A recipe can lose a little of its original texture and still preserve a family’s memory. The act of gathering, blessing, serving, and telling the story gives it continuity.
Food as a bridge in New Mexico
Iraqi Jewish food can be unfamiliar even to people who know other Middle Eastern cuisines. In New Mexico, however, it finds points of connection with local foodways: long braises, tart sauces, roasted vegetables, stuffed dishes, and a deep respect for cooking that brings people together. A family pot of kubbeh can become an invitation to neighbors who have never tasted it.
The Sassons have shared meals with members of nearby congregations, interfaith groups, and cultural organizations. These gatherings create space for conversation about Jewish life in Iraq, migration, language, and the many communities that have shaped the Jewish world. Food offers an accessible beginning, while the stories behind it add depth.
That spirit echoes the wider exchange taking place across the state, including Jewish-Latino exchanges that bring distinct histories and traditions into conversation. In each case, hospitality is more than serving a meal. It is a way of recognizing another community’s experience and making room for it.
Keeping the table alive
The family’s recipes are preserved through repetition, but also through documentation. Leah has begun recording short videos of Rachel cooking, capturing the gestures that written instructions cannot explain. She labels spice jars, measures ingredients, and asks relatives to contribute memories of dishes served at weddings, holidays, and ordinary Sunday lunches.
The project has revealed differences within the family. One cousin insists that t’bit needs more cinnamon; another refuses to cook without dried lime. Some relatives prefer a delicate kubbeh shell, while others want a thicker, sturdier casing. These disagreements are part of the tradition’s vitality. They demonstrate that heritage is shaped by many kitchens rather than guarded by a single official version.
The family now serves Iraqi Jewish dishes alongside New Mexican salads, American desserts, and Israeli favorites. At a recent gathering, a tray of tepsi baytinijan stood beside bowls of green chile and a platter of fruit. The meal reflected several places at once, yet it felt coherent because the family understood the connections among them.
Recipes worth carrying forward
For anyone hoping to preserve an Iraqi Jewish food tradition, the Sasson family emphasizes practice over perfection.
- Begin with one approachable dish, such as t’bit or tepsi baytinijan, and make it often.
- Ask older relatives to describe the recipe aloud while they cook, including textures and aromas.
- Keep a jar of baharat, a supply of rice, and ingredients for a sour element such as lemon or tamarind.
- Record family variations instead of trying to eliminate them.
- Serve the food with its history, explaining where the dish came from and when it traditionally appeared.
A recipe becomes heritage when it is shared. Children who help wash rice or shape kubbeh may remember the work long after they forget the measurements. Guests who hear why a dish was served on Shabbat may carry that story into another gathering.
The Sasson family’s journey from Baghdad to Albuquerque shows how culinary traditions can survive rupture without remaining frozen in the past. Each pot holds several landscapes: the rivers and markets of Iraq, the transitional homes of Israel, and the high desert of New Mexico. The flavors have traveled, adapted, and gathered new companions.
Community members can keep this living history growing by inviting an elder to demonstrate a family dish, recording the story behind a holiday meal, or bringing an inherited recipe to a congregational gathering. Set an extra place at the table, share the food’s journey, and let the next generation add its own chapter.