“My grandmother Ines is the sister-in-law of Jonas’s grandmother Nano. She was born in Alexandria. I could tell you the year but she’d never forgive me but she’s north of eighty. She later moved to Cairo and married my grandfather Isaac. In 1956 due to the Suez War she had to leave in a hurry along with the rest of the family and come to the UK. The culinary landscape of Britain was a world away from the exotic tastes of Egypt. Spaghetti was only available in tins of tomato sauce and if you couldn’t spell something then you certainly didn’t eat it. The middle-eastern delicacies that she made would have been greeted with under bemusement by the locals at least until they tried them but for us her cooking was a link to the family’s past. Her need to feed could provoke incredulity. Portion control was laughed at. Many a time I would be quizzed as to why I had lost my appetite after I’d struggled through only my third plate of food. Sadly she no longer cooks any more but her food lives on in the memory of my family. Who knows what Marcel Proust, the famous French navel-gazing hypochrondriac, could have written if he had tasted my grandmother’s bourekas instead of his precious madeleines…” – Isaac.