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not all meals are created equal for instance breakfast has the spicy eggplant muffin for a limited time and lunch doesn't mcdonald's breakfast comes first thanks for listening to the sporkful be sure to tune in each week for new episodes on amazon music or just ask alexa play the podcast the sporkful on amazon music Back in 2017, we aired one of our most popular sporkful episodes ever about a beloved sandwich shop in Aleppo, Syria.
At that time, Syria was reeling from years of civil war and the country's leader, Bashar al -Assad, had been brutally targeting his own citizens.
Aleppo was especially hard hit.
We heard about that sandwich shop and set out to find out what made it special and whether it was even still there.
there? At the end of last year, when rebel fighters toppled the Assad regime, we heard from so many of you asking for updates on the story and on Shadi Martini, the story's main character.
Well, listen to this big news.
We have a brand new update to share with you, including Shadi's first visit back to Aleppo since he went into exile more than a decade ago.
We'll have that new update for you next week.
But ahead of that, we're resharing this two part story.
If you're a newer listener, this will catch you up.
If you're a longtime listener, I hope you'll We'll appreciate hearing the story again.
We'll share part two this Friday, then the new update next Monday.
Here's part one. In 2003, Adam Davidson and Jen Banbury were living in Baghdad.
They were working as reporters covering the Iraq war.
And they were falling in love.
Early on, it was sort of as was common. At the time, it was like two journalists hooking up in a war zone.
And it wasn't entirely clear this was going to be a long -term thing.
And, in fact, at some points we thought, oh, boy, this is not going to last the afternoon.
I think I thought that this morning, though.
Wait, how long have we been together now?
We've been together a long time.
And you didn't think that this morning.
No, I didn't. I'm in for the long haul.
But it was around heading into December of 03, it was, I think, clear to us, I was like, oh, this is a really, like, we're a real couple.
This is, like, not just a wartime thing.
And we took this vacation.
Adam and Jen went to Aleppo in Syria.
Now, today, Aleppo is a symbol of the devastation of the Syrian civil war.
But this was before that, back when you might actually go to Aleppo on vacation.
A friend put them in touch with a local photographer named Isa Tuma.
And Isa said, while you're here, you have to go to this sandwich shop.
People are walking in and they see us and they're like, ah, you're here for the sandwich. And Issa pretty quickly is like, yeah, they've never had it before.
This is their first time.
And there's an excitement.
This was a pilgrimage spot.
Sort of looked like a pizza place more than a deli in a New York context.
There's a long counter with glass displays looking at all the stuff.
The thing that stuck out at me was there was a tray of sheep brains.
I mean, they were sort of laid out like almost like in a jewelry store because they had clearly been washed and they weren't like gory in any way.
They were just these like big brain jewels in a row.
And then the other meats were also on display.
But somehow, yeah, the sheep brain got like pride of place.
Beyond the sheep brains, though, Jan and Adam's memories of the sandwiches start to get kind of fuzzy.
I remember like mayonnaise, but like more magical than mayonnaise.
Radishes. I definitely remember radishes.
And I remember corn.
Oh, and there must have been a cheese, too.
We decided not to go with sheep brains.
Yeah, I kind of wish we had.
I really do, but we didn't.
Like I had chicken and you had.
I had the tongue, which felt conservative, but I love tongue.
What I remember vividly is like a softness and a crunchiness.
Like it was perfectly balanced.
And then the bread was extraordinary.
It was like one of the best sandwich baguettes I've ever, ever had.
And there was also clearly so much behind the preparation of the meats.
And it was sort of folly apart, but not too much. I remember us both like just staring at the guy who made it in shock.
Like it was like, whoa.
Whoa. Right. We each finished our enormous sandwiches, and we seriously discussed each getting another one.
Even though I was so full, I probably, like, could have taken a six -hour nap.
Do you wish now you had gotten another one?
Well, now I just wish I had a sheep brain one.
Yeah. I feel like we should have at least tasted it.
We didn't have to eat the whole thing.
Now I just wish we had somehow documented it, because clearly that place is long gone.
who knows whether the owners are alive or dead.
When people come to visit you from out of town, what's the one restaurant that you say, while you're here, you have to go to this place?
It could be fine dining, it could be a taco shack or a waffle house, but you've got that place.
When you take your guests there, what you're really saying is, I want you to eat here because it'll help you to appreciate my home.
Well, for Isa and for a lot of people in Aleppo, this sandwich shop was that place.
Now, that city's mostly destroyed.
Jen just assumes the restaurant's gone.
But is it possible it's still there?
Well, as you'll hear, when you're talking about a shop in a city that's largely cut off from the rest of the world, that's a really hard question to answer.
So today on The Sporkful, we're going on a quest. What made this sandwich shop special?
What exactly was in those sandwiches?
Has it really been demolished?
Are the owners alive or dead?
And what can the fate of this place tell us about the fate of Aleppo?
We'll take you from Aleppo to Austria, from Detroit to New York to Istanbul, all in search of a sandwich. Some corner in your stomach will test that food.
Maybe you will feel that your stomach is smiling, happy.
Wow, this is emotional.
Hello? Hello, marhaba?
Hello? This is The Sporkful.
It's not for foodies, it's for eaters.
I'm Dan Pashman. Each week on our show, we obsess about food to learn more about people.
The Syrian conflict began with the Arab Spring in 2011.
11. A lot of Syrians were protesting the oppressive regime of President Bashar al -Assad, and he began a brutal crackdown.
Fighting escalated, and since then, various rebel groups have been battling the government and each other.
Fighters and weapons have poured in from outside the country to support all sides.
Meanwhile, most average Syrians are caught in the middle.
Millions have fled.
And while it does seem the worst has passed and the regime will retain power, it's not over.
Dozens of towns remain under siege.
One person working to tell the stories of Syrians is Issa Touma.
He's the artist who took Adam and Jen to that sandwich shop years ago.
Adam connected me to him on Facebook.
Issa's still in Aleppo a lot of the time.
His mother's there too.
But he also lives for stretches in Europe where he gives talks about Syria.
He's managed to raise some awareness without angering the government.
Okay, you there? Yeah, I'm here.
How is Adam? Adam's good.
He has a son now, and he's very busy.
Wow. When I talked with Isa, he was in Vienna.
He grew up in Aleppo.
If you've seen a photo of the city in the last few years, chances are it was crumbled buildings and rubble, as far as the eye could see.
At the height of the war, fighting between the government and opposition groups essentially put Aleppo under siege.
Supplies of medicine and food were cut off.
People starved. Isa tells me his family learned how to cook moldy bread into a dish they could eat.
After we talked about his experience in the war, our conversation turned to the sandwich shop.
The sandwich shop that you took Adam to, what was it called?
Sergei. How do you spell that?
It's a very popular family name.
Oh, it's a family name, okay.
Yeah. And where in Aleppo is it?
The original center was in front of the public garden.
Later, they opened another shop in Faisal Street, which is really where Adam eats.
Okay, so Adam went to the one in Faisal Street.
Yeah. When you went to Sergei, what was your favorite sandwich to get?
I eat usually the rosto because I like it.
Yeah, a lot. Rosto.
Yeah. Rosto is ground meat rolled and stuffed with veggies, nuts, sometimes egg.
After it's cooked, it's sliced.
Can you describe to me what does it taste like?
Hmm. That difficult.
I don't know. Some corner in your stomach will taste that food.
Maybe you will feel that your stomach is smiling, happy.
When was the last time you were at this sandwich shop?
Around seven years ago.
Yeah. So Isa didn't know much about the details of the sandwiches.
He thought the original place was still there, but like he said, he hadn't been in years.
It felt like we'd hit a wall pretty early in our quest. Issa had given us one crucial piece of information, though.
The sandwich shop's name, which is also the last name of the family that owns it.
Sergia. We looked online, but all we could find was a Facebook page for an Afghani restaurant in Turkey.
We had a Syrian -American friend who speaks Arabic look online, too, but nothing.
And the thing is, even if we were able to get a phone number for Sergia, Syrian government monitors people's calls.
The folks in Surgia would be understandably wary of a call from a stranger asking a bunch of questions, even if it was from an Arabic speaker.
That kind of call, coming from outside the country, could get them in trouble.
We needed some kind of back -channel connection.
So we cast a wide net in the U .S. We reached out to organizations that work with Syrian refugees, friends in immigrant food communities, friends of friends whose parents came to the U .S. from Syria decades ago.
We put out the call.
we're looking for people from Aleppo who know the sandwich shop Sergia and that's how we found Shadi Martini do you remember that sandwich?
oh yeah, I remember every sandwich not only at Sergia, at other places also because I love these sandwiches coming up, a break in the case and an unbelievable story stick around And now, a delicious word from our sponsors.
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Welcome back to The Sporkful.
I'm Dan Pashman. As I said, this Friday we'll be airing part two of this story about the Aleppo sandwich. So stay tuned for that.
And if you're enjoying this episode, check out another series we did a few weeks back called How to Export Coffee in a War.
Mokhtar Al Khanshali was working as a doorman in San Francisco when he got obsessed with coffee.
He decided to start a coffee company, sourcing beans from Yemen, where his family is from.
He thought he could deliver high -quality coffee and help Yemeni farmers in the process.
But just as he was getting started, war broke out, and Mokhtar found himself stranded in Yemen.
Check out that story where you got this one.
Okay, back to the show.
So, we spent months trying to find someone from Aleppo who knew about this sandwich shop.
And then... I remember Sergio pretty well.
We have something called Central Park in Aleppo, so something like New York.
So, it was at the corner in front of Central Park, and it's a very nice place.
It's not a big one.
It's a small one, but it's always busy.
Shadi Martini was born and raised in Aleppo.
After going to college in Lebanon, he ran businesses in Europe.
Then in 2009, when he was 38, he came back to Aleppo to run the hospital his family owned.
So growing up in Aleppo, I was confined to a community which was a little bit upscale community, a community that was exclusive.
But when I started running the hospital, I met all segments of society.
I went out of my comfort zone and went to meet my employees at their homes.
I participated in weddings, funerals.
I was invited to lunches with my employees, met their families.
So somehow I saw the real Syria.
Did you ever go with any of those folks to Surgia?
Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, we would, especially late at night.
You know, food is essential thing in the life of Philippians.
So it's very sophisticated, the food.
We really appreciate when we are having a bite.
We want it to be a perfect meal.
So if you have a lousy place for sandwiches or for whatever, you can't survive.
Shadi tells me Damascus may be Syria's political capital, but Aleppo was always the food capital.
And even though it's a big city, Three and a half million before the conflict.
It feels like a small town.
Everyone knows everyone.
Shadi says the folks at Sergia knew him so well, sometimes he didn't even have to order.
It's like old friends, old buddies that you know them, you know.
It's being there, eating it there and talking to the people that makes it probably more delicious than anywhere else.
And what about the brain sandwich?
Can you describe that one to me?
Oh, that's my favorite, actually.
It's a magnificent sandwich. The problem with it, if you have high cholesterol, it's dangerous for you.
The way they do it, they boil it, so you don't have any smell or anything.
They will cut it like you cut a tomato, and then they'll put it in the bun, and then they'll put it on a toaster, and then they will put inside also the tomatoes, the pickles, the Syrian pickles, and the lemon juice with some garlic.
and so the brain is kind of soft and fatty and tender so you have the richness of the brain with the sort of the zing and the tart of the lemon and the garlic and it melts it just melts it melts in your mouth it's like mushy like this and you put this seven spices that we have we call it bahar by seven spices mixed together it also gives it a uniqueness to the sandwich and when you eat it It's like it's over and very quick.
It is delicious. When's the last time you had that sandwich?
Oh, it's been a while.
It's been since I left. I left home in 2012.
12. That seven spice mix Shadi mentioned, it's found across the Middle East. It varies a bit by region and even from one family to the next, but it's usually got cinnamon, nutmeg, coriander, cumin, cloves, paprika, and black pepper.
Aleppo was once a hub of the global spice trade.
Its market was built during the Ottoman Empire in the 14 and 1500s, and it stood for centuries.
In 2012, in the midst of the war, the market was destroyed.
The seven spices isn't the only aspect of this sandwich we got to talk about.
There are other classic Middle Eastern touches, lemon juice, pistachios, pickled vegetables.
Then there are the aspects that are uniquely Syrian.
Syria is a crossroad country, so throughout history, it's always a mix of cultures.
You had a lot of religions, you have a lot of cultures mixing together.
So that's the uniqueness.
That's part of the uniqueness of the food.
Remember how Jen talked about the sandwich baguette being one of the best she'd ever had?
Well, France occupied Syria for decades after World War I.
Hence, French bread.
Shadi says some of Sergia's sandwiches used spicy red pepper.
That comes from a strong Armenian influence.
During the Armenian Genocide, refugees poured into Syria.
In fact, many Armenian recipes call for Aleppo pepper.
Now, to be clear, Sergia wasn't the only place in Aleppo that made these kinds of sandwiches.
They just did it better, like the best barbecue place in Houston or the best burrito place in San Francisco.
So to recap, you got a city obsessed with food, a tight -knit community where personal connections run deep, and ingredients that are unique to this place.
It seems like Sergia could only exist in Aleppo.
And that's why it's so important to Shadi.
But there's another reason, maybe even a bigger reason.
Because Shadi's experiences at Sergia weren't just about the food or the atmosphere.
As he said, he grew up privileged in an exclusive community.
Sharing meals with his hospital employees at Surgia helped him connect with what he called the real Syria.
I didn't know the suffering of other Syrians.
I didn't know the worries of other Syrians and the majority of Syrians.
I just saw that everyone lived like me.
And if someone complained or had, why is he complaining?
You know, it's a good life.
Well, it's a good life for me, not for him.
There were other pivotal moments for Shadi in Surgia, especially as the Syrian conflict was escalating.
He remembers that at one of his last trips there, the atmosphere had changed.
The situation in Syria was very tense.
So people started not really talking to each other that much because they were so afraid that they might say something that would turn out to be dangerous for them.
So that was strange for me.
Before that, we used to talk a lot, laugh a lot.
All of a sudden, people started being quiet.
Around this time, protests in Aleppo were increasing, but the government insists that it was a small group.
Regular citizens were taken to the streets, but the government said the demonstrators were terrorists and radicals.
And when everyone's staying silent out of fear, you can start to wonder, wait, is everyone else seeing the same thing I'm seeing?
Or am I the only one?
So that was the atmosphere at Sergia when Shadi was there by himself one night.
The TV was on, showing a news report about the protests.
The government's line was, these are all terrorists extremists radicals islamists that want to overthrow the government and we knew better we knew that there were only normal folks that just wanted some some freedom some change and we were all watching but we didn't know each other so we were only looking at each other and then spontaneously we we understood that we all disagree with the line of what's the the government is saying on tv and we just started laughing so you guys are sitting over like lamb brain sandwiches at surgia and this thing comes on tv and you're like yeah look at us here
we are the terrorists yeah yeah yeah apparently everyone was so the same because we just started looking and laughing you know we didn't say anything we just laughed because we knew it was a lie but you know everyone was afraid of the other you know if you live in a police state where everything is under control and everything is monitored and everything and you so you be very careful what you say and what you do.
But that night in Sergia Shadi saw that the other strangers in the shop felt the same way he did about what was happening in their country.
So connecting with those people connecting with different Syrians through his work it all led Shadi to make a decision that would change his life forever.
Because many of the demonstrations like that one on TV were happening at the local university which was right near Shadi's hospital.
So mainly the protests will come out from there.
People will be beaten, chased, and a lot of them will escape and try to head our way.
So it was normal for us to see people running and trying to go into one entrance of our hospitals and escape from the other entrance to elude the people chasing them.
Around that time, Shaadi started getting pressure from the secret police and other government agencies.
Each and every representative of these branches would come to me as the manager of the hospital and tell me if you have anyone who was beaten in a demonstration or shot, you have to inform us immediately.
And if you don't do that, they will come and pick me up.
In case it's not clear, picked up means getting arrested, interrogated, possibly tortured, possibly killed.
And when most Syrians get an order like that from the secret police, they follow it.
I remember one guy got beaten in front of the hospital.
They thought he was a demonstrator and he was bleeding all over.
And one of my employees called me and said, you know, this guy was beaten because they thought he was a demonstrator.
Shall I call the numbers that I have?
And I told him, why do you need to call them?
The guy wasn't a demonstrator.
He said, yeah, but he got beaten.
So that's the mentality that my employees had.
They were so worried that if they didn't call, that they would get arrested.
Shadi told his employee not to call anyone.
But it wasn't just Shadi's workers who were terrified.
It was also the patients.
One time, a six -year -old boy was brought into the hospital with a gunshot wound.
He was with his grandmother.
He told the police the terrorists did it, and that satisfied the interrogators.
Then we took him to the operating theater, and I remember the surgeons coming, who operated on him, coming and laughing.
And I told him, why are you laughing?
He said, Remember this kid that said the terrorists shot him?
He said, We asked him, Who shot you?
And he looked at me, but there was no parents around him.
He told him, Well, the terrorists were on a tank, and they shot me.
But at that time, early 2011, the only people who had tanks were the army, the regular army.
No one else had tanks, so we knew immediately that it was the government that shot him.
But he was coached by his parents to say, you know, you never say the government or the soldiers.
You will say the terrorists because that way we won't get into trouble.
That's how people coached everyone, you know, not to say the truth, just to stay safe and get the treatment that they needed.
There was always someone from the police in the hospital.
There was so much fear and intimidation there that soon people who needed help stopped coming in.
And that was when we started trying to help them.
In other words, Shadi decided to disobey the order from the secret police, to try to treat people instead of turning them in.
One day, when a woman came into the hospital after being shot in the leg, the authorities were close behind her.
And they came and they said, we want to take her for interrogation.
And we told them, she's like, she can't go.
She just got in. She needs to go to an operation.
And he said, no, we're taking her.
So we said, well, you can't, you have to wait a bit.
She said, OK, and we always had someone there, you know, armed or there waiting for her.
So we tried to call her relatives and told them, this is what's going to happen.
So what we did is we smuggled her out and they were waiting for her in another place and in front of her room.
And when they went in, there was no one.
So that's how we did it.
And so the secret police come into the room where they expect to find her recovering from surgery, and they find that she's gone.
Yes. What happens next?
Well, they ask us where she is, and I said, I don't know.
I can't tell you. At that time, it was early on, and people didn't expect that we were in on it.
But as time went by and Shadi kept doing this, he started to think someone might be onto him.
And at that time there was a lot of kidnapping of wealthy figures and people.
So I remember a guy who I knew fairly, he was an interrogator.
And he came to me and he told me, Shadi, your father is a very prominent figure in this city.
And I said, yes. Well, he said, well, you should take very good care of him.
And I said, why? He said, you never know who would kidnap him or take him.
you should take care of him.
You shouldn't let him walk like this by himself.
I interpreted it as a threat.
I was worried. I was very worried.
I made someone to try to be with my father all the time when he goes on his walks or try to be behind him in a car or something because I was very worried.
Then things got worse.
We had one doctor that was kidnapped kidnapped and tortured and was thrown on a roadside ditch. And this doctor was known that he would treat anyone who came to his clinic and he would help these demonstrators.
So we, you know, somehow I interpreted it as a warning, like be careful what you're doing and stop doing it.
But Shadi didn't stop.
In fact, he started doing a lot more.
Coming up in the second part of our story...
We are discovered. Our names are on each and every roadblock.
They said, we are coming back to rebuild this place.
We will never leave Aleppo.
Most of us are so traumatized of what we went through, what we've witnessed, that we try not to think about it.
Hello? Our story will continue this Friday with part two, and then next Monday, a brand new update.
While you wait for that one, check out some of our other recent episodes.
We had one about a hot dog vendor in New York who spent decades fighting City Hall, the police, and other street vendors for the most valuable spot in the whole city, right outside the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
That episode's up now.
Check it out. And hey, did you know you can listen to The Sporkful in the SiriusXM app Yes, the SiriusXM app has all your favorite podcasts, plus over 200 ad -free music channels curated by genre and era, plus live sports coverage.
Does your podcasting app have that?
And there's interviews with A -list stars and so much more.
It's everything you want in a podcast app and music app all rolled into one.
Right now, Sporkful listeners can get three months free of the SiriusXM app by going to SiriusXM .com slash Sporkful.
This episode was produced by Anne Sanney and me.
Dan Charles was our editor.
Casey Holford mixed the episode.
Additional production and editing from Peter Clowney, Dalia Mortada, Ava Deutsch, Shruti Pinnamaneni, Zach Rosen, and Dustin Constantino. Special thanks to Adam Davidson and Jen Banbury.
These days our show is produced by Emma Morgenstern and Andres O 'Hara.
Our editor this week was Nick Liao, and our engineer is Jared O 'Connell.
This show is a production of Stitcher Studios.
Our executive producer is Camille Stanley.
Until next time, I'm Dan Pashman.
This is Allison Copeland, hailing from Austin, Texas, but coming to you from London, England, reminding you to eat more, eat better, and eat more better.
