24 July 2008

Was a special pizza created to honor Obama?

From the BBC today, at a link entitled "Palestinians pay culinary homage to visiting Senator 'O'" is this description -
"...no real visible signs of Obama-mania.

Apart from in the Zeit and Za'tar bakery in Ramallah.

There - next to its wood-fire oven - manager Nasser Abdulhadi told me about "the O", his culinary homage to the visiting presidential candidate.

He calls it a pastry, but the "O" is actually a sort of Palestinian pizza - a circular dough ball, stuffed with cheese, dotted with cherry tomatoes and black sesame seeds and topped with a garnish of basil and mint.

All of which, Mr Abdulhadi told me, reflected the American melting pot, symbolised by Senator "O" himself.

The white cheese represented white Americans, he explained, the red tomatoes the "Red Indians" - or native Americans - and the black seeds, what he called the "Afro-Americans".

The green? Mr Obama's environmental policies, apparently - slightly random, that bit..."

I hope I can be excused for just a bit of skepticism, but since red, white, black, and green are famously the colors of the Palestinian flag, I suspect the concoction "created" for Obama is a rebranding of an old staple by an enterprising baker.

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