'Going Home': an evocative tale of a Cape chef's journey to trace her Lebanese roots

Cape Town chef, wine expert, food writer and cookery teacher Sophia Lindop has released her new cookbook, 'Going Home', in which she tells the tale of her odyssey to Lebanon to find her roots and her family.

It's an evocative read told through the dishes she grew up with and the ones she enjoyed in the land of her forefathers. 

Here's a short excerpt to whet your appetite:

I found the courage to plan searching for where I came from on my third visit to Lebanon. I had the name of a village, one I had never heard of before. And I had, through asking many questions, learnt that our family name was Aad, one I remember my granddad mentioning occasionally. And that was the sum total of my knowledge.

I knew that this final part of my journey home could not be shared with others - it was a solemn walk I had to walk alone with Paddy, my husband. We checked into a hotel in Ain Saadeh, only about 20km above Beirut. This was the village from which I thought my forebears had come. We discovered that the village where we needed to be was Ain el Saydeh and it wasn't long before we were racing along a winding road, higher into the mountains. Then the driver announced, in his broken English, that we had entered Ain el Saydeh.

Eventually, breathless, we arrived at a home high up on the hill overlooking the village. The key was in the lock on the outside of the door, and one of the women, obviously a neighbour, knocked and ran in, calling the name Michel. Suddenly I heard the voice of an old man responding from below us, and in a flash I remembered my grandfather telling me about our village built on the hill, of terraced gardens ... It all seemed right.

And, despite my very limited Arabic, I understood when she finally shouted, "Your family from America is here to find you." I was wondering how to tell them that I'm not from America when the voice called back that he had no family in America. And instinctively I called, "South Africa!" Silence ...

We were all staring at the spot from where the sound had come when an old, skinny man came ambling towards me, staring deep into my soul. Instinctively I knew he was mine, my family.

Michel, whose grandfather was the brother of my great-grandfather, took my hand and led me next door to our family home - his dad had built the home he was living in on the same plot, to the left of the main house. War had torn the inside walls out and left bite marks in the stone from which it was built. It was closed up, unsafe to enter, uninhabitable. But I had to stand inside it, so Paddy dragged the barricades aside and I crawled inside the bowels of the home that had nurtured my clan.

I swear I heard their voices that day, happy voices, and I super-imposed the picture my granddad had painted of this house over what was left of it. And I could see it all and feel it all. I was home.

I wanted to take something from there to use in the photography for the recipe section of this book. What it would be, I didn't know. But, while I was standing there, scanning the rubble that remained, my eye was drawn upward, and there, on a part of the upper storey that was hanging down precariously, I spotted something. I dug around for a stick and, poking and jabbing at whatever it was, finally dragged it towards me - and there it was. A fork. Its origins I don't know, but I knew it had fed the mouths of my people. You will find that fork on the pages of my book, Going Home — Food and Stories From Lebanon, The Land of my Forefathers.

I belonged. Finally my quest was over. I was home.

• 'Going Home – Food and Stories from Lebanon, The Land of my Forefathers' by Sophia Lindop is published by Annake Müller Publishing. The book retails for R450, but Sunday Times Lifestyle readers can purchase it for the discounted price of R400 by e-mailing annakem@mweb.co.za