Reality Bites is a feature series focused on the relationships people have with food, what kinds of cooking they’re inspired and sustained by, and the ingredients and tools that help them along the way.
Food historian Salma Serry has long believed that food is about more than just satiation for the stomach. Her upbringing in the United Arab Emirates emphasized food as a medium of exchange between friends and family, and taught her that a meal can be a window into political, romantic, and communal expression — a kind of satiation for the soul. It’s that knowledge that drove her to start Sufra Archive, a collaborative space to research Middle Eastern cultural history and to understand the past, present, and future of food. When she’s not expanding the archive or pursuing her PhD on food supply ecosystems in the Gulf, you can find her refining her eclectic collection of tableware, making a cup of warm tea, or taking silent, focused trips to the grocery store.
What is your morning routine like?
To wake up, I start my day with music, then scroll through my phone, and head to the kitchen for breakfast. I used to go all out for breakfast, but now I split it into two smaller meals to manage my blood sugar better. First is always eggs and bread — something solid to pair with my coffee because I can’t stand coffee on an empty stomach. A couple of hours later, I’ll have some fruit, a smoothie, cheese, or yogurt. That keeps me steady through lunch, so I avoid that post-lunch energy crash. On busy mornings or when I’m out, I tend to forget the second meal, but that’s life. Every Saturday, my partner and I head to Petit Déjeuner — a cozy mom-and-pop spot that’s a diner by day and a bar by night. It’s just around the corner, and we always get waffles and eggs Benny.
Tell us a little bit about your background. Where does your interest in food stem from?
I grew up by a busy port in Sharjah, UAE, and living there deeply influenced my food tastes. Comfort food for me is Egyptian home cooking (tomato-based baked casseroles, vermicelli rice, veal escalope), followed by the hearty Syrian, Indian, and Persian flavors I was used to in Sharjah’s restaurants and in my friends’ homes. My parents had no patience for fast food, preferring to host big gatherings. Cooking never really felt like a chore. Hosting felt second nature — it was about sharing, not stressing.
Beyond home, Sharjah’s food scene was fun as a child. Every evening, I’d walk to a Syrian bakery to buy samoon, a kind of yeast bread fresh from the oven, the golden crust still warm. In the morning, it became part of my school lunch: a sandwich stuffed with cheese or cold cuts. Shawarma shops, samosas from Pakistani takeout, aush reshteh from Sadaf — an Iranian restaurant near my house — and freshly baked, arm-length Afghan naan for just 1 dirham were staples of my childhood.
How is food entangled with politics, both now and historically?
Food and politics have been and are always intertwined. The way food is produced, distributed, and consumed is shaped by political decisions and power dynamics, not just taste. Policies that govern subsidies, trade deals, and agricultural practices all affect what’s available and who gets access to it. Food also becomes a tool for political expression, whether it’s protesting over rising prices or using national dishes to assert cultural identity. It’s always a reflection of the political forces shaping our world.
I’m a food historian. I’m building a digital archive of Arabic cookbooks and ephemera from West Asia and North Africa while doing a PhD in History. My PhD research studies the politics of oil and the manipulation of food supply ecosystems, as well as cultural food knowledge and thermality in the Arab Gulf. My other research interests around food vary, and each format takes different shapes — sometimes, it’s art commissions and workshops; other times, it’s dining experiences or film. Food is always in the background of what I read, write, and create. I started out wanting to understand why we eat the way we do, looking back as a way to study the present. Now, I’m more interested in how looking at the past can help us think about the future.
Food history as a concept isn’t just about what people ate — it’s a lens into how societies functioned, how power shifted, and how cultures evolved. It tells us about trade routes, colonization, migration, and — at its core — survival. It reveals class structures and who had access to what and why. It reveals narratives of resistance, like how communities reclaimed or adapted food and technologies imposed on them. Recipes are archives in themselves, carrying stories across generations. Even a single ingredient can trace a journey of empire, war, or ingenuity. Studying food history isn’t just about the past — it helps us understand current issues around globalization, sustainability, and food politics today.
How is nutrition and food, for you, related to community, culture, and ancestry?
In Arab culture, cooking for others isn’t optional — it’s just how things work. People constantly invest time, effort, and resources into each other’s lives, whether it’s checking in, helping out, or making sure no one is left behind. They cook, they share meals, they insist on paying the bill. Whether at home or out, treating someone to food is a way of showing care, and the unspoken rule is that it gets reciprocated. It’s not about keeping score, but it’s how appreciation is shown. This constant exchange builds strong relationships and opens up communication channels, even between people who aren’t necessarily close at first. You especially see it in times of need — when someone gives birth, when someone dies, when someone gets sick. It’s more than just hospitality; it’s a core part of how people support each other. Being born into a culture like this is something to be proud of.
are there times you feel uninspired to cook, and if so, how do you inspire yourself?
So many times — almost half the weekdays. I love to order in, or I end up boiling some pasta and topping it with black pepper and parmesan, or I make some Egyptian koshari from canned lentils and rice without all the other toppings. I don’t force myself to be inspired. If I don’t feel like it, I don’t feel I need to be. Sometimes, when I feel lazy, the only thing that drives me to cook is craving something specific. Only then do I get up and force myself to “be inspired” — and I always crave random things, so that keeps me going.
Do you listen to anything while you cook, like music or a Podcast?
I suck at following what people are saying or listening to conversations for too long in general, so podcasts are not my thing. I get lost and miss most of what people say, and multitasking between listening and cooking ends up hurting my brain. I listen to music if I’m in the mood, or sometimes, if I’ve had a busy day with people, I just enjoy the silence and hyperfocus on the cooking.
Tell us a bit about Sufra Archive. How did the project come about? What are your goals for it?
Sufra Archive started as a project to collect cookbooks that I found in Egypt's flea markets, then quickly expanded to include other food-related materials: menus, photographs, magazines, packaging, and press archives. It was about capturing the everyday, often overlooked ephemera that tells the story of a culture through its food. By gathering these objects from across the Arab world, Sufra began building a unique snapshot of the region’s culinary history, focusing on the small details that reveal larger cultural shifts. It’s a way to preserve the unspoken, the transient, and the personal — bringing together the things that usually slip through the cracks. The project aimed to go beyond national boundaries, focusing on the everyday connections people have with food, and the way it was transformed by the different contexts of time.
Since the early days of the project, I’ve put community at the heart of it, which is why the social platform was built alongside the archive. It’s designed to be a resource for other researchers, artists, and historians to tap into and expand upon. It always makes my day when I get a message from someone in the community asking about a certain cookbook or wanting help with sources for a research project — it’s exactly why I do what I do. What started as a simple collection of cookbooks from Egyptian flea markets has quickly grown through securing grants, hiring research assistants, and collaborating with artists, curators, and scholars. The communal aspect has always been central, making Sufra not just an archive, but a shared space for collaborative learning and creation.
What’s your food shopping strategy? How often do you go and where? Do you make a shopping list?
Two strategies: 1) I don’t talk or listen to a podcast while shopping, because I get distracted and it takes me ages in the store; and 2) I always keep a shopping list to help with my ADHD. I even list the items on it according to the order of their location in the shop. I go twice a week, usually, sometimes more — because I walk there, so I can’t carry more than two bags back with me at a time, unless my partner’s with me.
what ingredients do you always have on hand?
I always have eggs, tomatoes, either yogurt or cheese, pickles, olives, and apricot jam in the fridge. In my pantry, I keep vine leaves in jars, rice, lentils, chickpeas, makdous (Syrian preserved walnut-stuffed eggplants), dried mint and dill (usually for soups and dolmas), saffron (for fish or desserts), pomegranate molasses, sugar cane molasses, and tahini.
Do you have any table-setting tips? How do you like to present food to guests?
Some of my tried and true general hosting tips:
1) When you plan what to cook, try and pick dishes that can be done ahead of time, and utilize the oven to keep them warm or reheat them just before eating. Order groceries and make at least two dishes ahead of time.
2) On the day, start with the dish that will take the most time to cook, followed by quicker dishes.
3) Chop your salad early and set the dressing aside, and set up the table and drinks station while the food is cooking. (Don’t forget serving spoons. I used to always leave them till the last minute and ended up flustered, running around the kitchen when it was time to serve.)
4) If your kitchen island is close to the dining table, use it to set up a buffet-style spread and free up space on the table for decor. This gives you more room to be creative with your setup.
5) Fresh fruits and vegetables make great natural table props, adding color and texture. I used to limit myself to traditional tableware, but if you think about it like a canvas, anything can be part of your tablescape. I recently started playing around with unexpected objects (not necessarily only things you get in the tableware section of shops) — think small sculptural things, trinkets, and toys to create a personal and playful tablescape.
what is your favorite serving-ware and some essential cookware you would recommend?
Kanaka, my Arabic coffee pot for my morning coffee, Estekana tea for that afternoon mint tea, and a good thick-base stainless steel saucepan that is heavy enough to cause serious brain injury if you throw it at someone’s head — so sauces don’t get burnt while they simmer. I love toast, too, so a good toaster with large slots for thick-cut bread slices is nice.
For serving, I love stainless steel. It dresses up anything you put on it, makes you feel you’re eating room service, and doesn’t take much space in storage. And I don’t generally like spending much on things unless they’re good quality investment pieces — the real deal. For that, I go to Nikolaou Restaurant Equipment — the best spot in Toronto — or Al Barr wal Bahr in Dubai for professional kitchen or tableware.
what are your favorite restaurants, cafes, and bakeries?
Shamshiri: To me, comfort food is something as close to home as possible, with good quality, fresh ingredients, and usually, rice. My go-to for a hearty dinner is Iranian from this spot in North York. My favorites are their ghormeh sabzi or chicken kebab.
Daymi: This place in Queen West is my favorite for lunch. They have a mean kabsa (chicken and rice), and a great shish tawuq and toum (grilled chicken with a creamy garlic dip).
Black Canary, Nabulu Cafe and Pamenar: My favorite spots for cozy coffee catchups with friends or to do some work.
Bar Volo: My friend just took me here, and the drinks were great.
La Palette: The very best for a date night of steak and frites.
all images provided by salma serry, edited by maanasi natarajan