Meet Bahaa
Cooking for Bahaa began as a way to try and impress his mother. “I wasn’t the favourite of my family for nothing,” he grins. “I was looking for brownie points everywhere.”
As a kid, Bahaa spent hours as his mother’s unofficial sous chef, and would play the role of ‘taste consultant’ whenever required – checking the balance of flavours was just right (or at least, just right for him). It was from his mother that Bahaa learned the recipes, techniques and patience required to cook with love. “It was a lot of quality time with mum,” he says, “doing these beautiful things.”
Born in Saudi Arabia to Syrian parents, he remained there until he was 11, when his family moved back to Syria in a bid to reconnect with their ancestral homeland. “I needed to reintroduce myself to my home country,” says Bahaa. “I grew up in Saudi Arabia – but I needed to grow out of there too.”
In Syria, Bahaa studied mechanical engineering then worked as a mechanical engineer and a medical device technician among other things. As the conflict in Syria escalated, and he dreamed himself a future in which he didn’t have to dodge snipers’ bullets on the way home from work, Bahaa moved to Turkey, where he lived for six years, worked in marketing, dabbled in stand-up comedy (which might explain his knack for making people smile – even when he’s telling a sad story) and met his Australian wife. And then he and his wife arrived in Melbourne in 2021 with their cat, Sasha, whom they brought all the way from Aleppo, and Bahaa says is now probably better-travelled than him.
“The closer I get to cooking the meals I tasted at home…the more I feel like me.”
Bahaa’s mother left Syria for Dubai when he was in his 20s, but not before cramming a freezer full of his favourite home-cooked meals. “It was her way of taking care of me,” he says. Once those meals were finished, Bahaa began cooking for himself – messaging his mother overseas for tips and advice. Being a chemistry teacher, his mother would let him in on all manner of secrets – like how adding potatoes to a too-salty dish will help soak up the excess salt via osmosis. “It was a beautiful bonding activity,” says Bahaa, who lost the chance to see his mother after she moved to Dubai. “The closer I get to cooking the meals I tasted at home…the more I feel like me.”
Bahaa’s Free to Feed menu features Syrian staples like Sweet-and-Sour Fattoush, which boasts copious amounts of pomegranate molasses (pomegranate is native to Aleppo), Ful, (pronounced “fool”) a bean-based dish eaten in Aleppo only on Fridays, the day of rest, because it will “dumb you down just in time for the weekend,” laughs Bahaa. As well his Mnazalt al zahra, (Cauliflower & Lamb Stew) which includes his “heavenly descended cauliflower” Baha promises it will “make you fall in love with cauliflower even if you hated it one bite ago!”.
Bahaa hopes he can help shift the narrative towards Syrians through his food. “I haven’t met a Syrian person that doesn’t put their whole heart into something they do,” he says. “War is such a small part of our history – our bigger history is about science, food, love and poetry. We make the best out of everything.”
This beautiful piece was written by our friend Oliver Pelling from GOOD & PROPER.