Stories can be told without words, in the hands reaching for the plate on the lunch table, in the torn bread dipped in oil and zaatar, in the ripe fruit picked fresh off the tree, or in the blessings whispered before a meal begins. 

Food is the way many of us first learn about care. We are taught that sharing a meal amongst family and friends is sacred. We also come to know that hunger is not always about sustenance, and that nourishment often arrives as a form of love, generosity, resistance, or even mourning. 

Issue IX is a tribute to the multi-sensorial language of food. Food is tasted; but it is also smelled, touched, seen, and even heard. We tell stories of dishes and traditions that connect the past to the present, the land to the table, love to loss, and food to political action. 

This issue is an invitation to reflect on what our inherited recipes and practices carry beyond ingredients and techniques. It is also a testament to how food sustains not just bodies, but histories and hopes. 

We hope that this issue nourishes you in more ways that one. 

Michelle Eid

Editor-in-Chief