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Lowe's. We help. You save. hey everyone we're about to share part two of our series all about a very special sandwich shop in aleppo syria if you didn't hear part one please go back and listen to that one first we originally aired this story in 2017 in the past year conditions in syria have changed dramatically Many of you reached out asking for an update on this story.
Well, I'm pleased to tell you that this Monday we will have that brand new update on the sandwich shop and our main character, Shadi Martini.
So enjoy part two and stay tuned for this Monday when we'll have the new part three.
Previously on The Sporkful.
People are walking in and they see us and they're like, ah, you're here for the sandwich. This was a pilgrimage spot.
Clearly that place is long gone.
who knows whether the owners are alive or dead.
Do you remember that sandwich?
Oh yeah, yeah. I remember every sandwich. It's being there, eating it there and talking to the people that makes it probably more delicious.
We used to talk a lot, laugh a lot.
All of a sudden people started being quiet.
People started avoiding coming into hospitals And that was when we started trying to help them.
We had one doctor that was kidnapped and tortured.
I interpreted it as a warning, like, be careful what you're doing and stop doing it.
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.
Let's continue with the story of Shadi Martini.
He has a special attachment to the sandwich shop we're searching for, Sergia.
Shadi loved that place partly because of the food and the people, which made the shop really unique to Aleppo.
But he also loved it because it played a role in his own transformation, from a wealthy businessman running a hospital to a guy who was risking his life to treat demonstrators who'd been beaten by the secret police.
When we left off, Shadi was getting increasingly worried that he'd be discovered.
A doctor who was known to treat protesters had been arrested and tortured.
Shadi took it as a message.
Someone was telling him to stop.
But he didn't stop.
Instead, he started doing a lot more.
So what we did is we established this secret network with the friends of mine.
And we actually financed this by our resources because we had money.
money. We were very well off.
And what we did is we established some secret facilities and helped people establish it, gave them equipment, gave them medical supplies.
Through this secret network, Shadi and a few friends smuggled medical supplies to people around the region.
And he put his skills running businesses to use.
He created a structure with a small core group, and then there were supply chains in various directions.
He made sure only the core group knew all the people involved.
So if someone down the chain was arrested, They wouldn't have too much information to share.
So we did a lot of this stuff under the radar, and no one knew about it until 2012 when we were discovered.
Did your family know what you were doing?
My family didn't. I'm talking here about my family as my parents and my brothers, but my wife knew.
What was that moment?
What was the moment you were discovered?
It was another two colleagues that were arrested.
And at that time, I was outside the country because what I did in 2011 is I moved my family out of the country, my kids and wife, because I was very afraid that something will happen to them because of my actions.
Shadi was able to get his wife and kids to America.
They basically just got lucky.
They won the green card lottery.
They settled in the Detroit area.
Shadi shuttled back and forth between there and Aleppo.
He wanted to continue his secret work and stay close to his parents.
He was hoping to convince them to leave with him.
Then, in the summer of 2012, Shadi was on his way back to Syria after a trip to the US.
At this point, he'd been doing his secret work for about a year.
He was on a stopover in Europe.
The fighting in Aleppo at that time was so bad that the airport there was closed.
His flight back to Syria was canceled.
And during that time, when I was trying to find another airline or to go through another, city like Damascus, I was informed by a colleague of mine who worked with me, don't come back.
We are discovered. Our names are on each and every roadblock, so stay out.
And actually, if I would have made it on this flight that I was planned, probably I couldn't have made it out.
at that time I always thought of my kid who was three years old I always imagined that my son would grow up and he would come to me and ask me about Syria what happened at that time I will have to explain it I always thought that the next question will be what what did you do and I I couldn't imagine myself telling him, well, I did nothing.
I just took care of business and made us more rich. Actually, after I left, the government put out a decree to confiscate everything I own in Syria.
So I lost everything.
I lost the ability to go back to my home.
But really, I don't regret anything.
anything I am I sleep great at night seeing that I did what I should do once you realized you weren't gonna be able to go back to Aleppo were you able to tell your parents oh yeah they knew but they knew that I couldn't come back you know they knew it stopped for them it stopped for me probably but they're They're still in Aleppo, so they need to do what they have to do to survive.
When was the last time you spoke to them?
Several years now. One of the reasons I went back to Aleppo in 2008, and I had very good business in Europe, was to be next to them.
you know I thought most of my life was I lived it without them so somehow I thought that being close to them in these years would be a good thing but you know changed you know events you know changed everything sorry about that try not to think about it, you know if you you know, this is what the dilemma for a lot of us that we went through what we went through is we try to block it most of us are so traumatized of what we went through what we've witnessed that we try not to think about it As I listened to Shadi I kept thinking about how he had made this choice that had caused him so much pain,
and yet he doesn't regret it.
I wondered if he wishes he hadn't seen what he's seen.
Not that he would have made a different choice and supported the government, but does he just wish he could get rid of that pain?
No, never. Never. You know, it's tough, but I'm happy that I went through this.
It's not only about Aleppo.
It's opened my eyes about a lot of things.
As a person, as human beings.
How we are as human beings.
I always looked at myself as myself only.
And the people surrounding me.
Remember Darfur? We didn't care.
Rwanda? We didn't care.
And you have to understand that it could come to you.
It's going to happen to you.
And one day you'll be suffering.
And you'll be looking and wondering.
Wondering why are others not so passionate, why they don't have empathy toward me.
Well, yeah, it's tough when others had these problems and you didn't care.
So, no, no, no, I love that I've seen that.
I love that I've turned to a different person because that's how people should be, not the other way around.
Wow, this is emotional.
I thought we were talking about sandwiches and then you surprised me with all this stuff and opened this bloods of emotion that I wasn't prepared to.
Yes, we were talking about sandwiches.
Shadi gave us a really deep sense of the food and the atmosphere at Sergia.
I think now we understand why this place was so important to him and why, as Adam put it, even for locals, Sergia was a pilgrimage spot.
But Shadi didn't know for sure what happened to it.
Like Isa, he'd heard the original one by the public garden might still be open, but he couldn't confirm it.
Shadi had known a lot of the workers in the shop, but he didn't really know the Sergia family.
And he can't reach out to people in Syria for info because talking to Shadi could put those people in danger.
We needed to get to someone in Aleppo.
But how do you reach someone in a mostly destroyed city in a police state?
Well, as it turns out, there's an app for that.
Coming up, contact.
Stick around. Time to cook up some advertisements.
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I've told you a lot about the behind the scenes of the making of my cookbook, Anything's Possible, but I think there's one detail I left out, and that is that I tested every single recipe in that book on my Samsung range.
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Welcome back to the Sporkful.
I'm Dan Pashman. If you're looking for more stories like this one on the way that food can collide with politics, culture and history, Check out our recent episodes on a hot dog vendor who's been defending his turf in New York City for decades.
And our recent episode on the real life Jose Cuervo and the tequila wars of Mexico.
What's that? You're more in the mood for something lighter?
A little more fun? We got that too.
Recently, I was joined by Paola Velez and James Park to take your calls and field your food disputes.
One listener told us that the best part of the watermelon is right at the end where the pink flesh meets the white rind.
Paola and James had some thoughts on that.
Can we just like touch base on the watermelon?
Oh my god that was the one that I was like excuse me I agreed everything until you said that.
Really? I love that part.
No. Like the pink part is like what you would give to somebody that you love the white part is your enemies.
You know what I mean?
It's just like sure I will eat it because I don't want to like you know leave too much pink on it but I wouldn't say I would choose that over the watermelon.
I agree that I would not rank that as the best bite of the watermelon but I do enjoy it.
I mean look I don't like yucking anybody's yum Because my stuff might be weird. But yeah, that one was like, mm -mm.
Now, back to the show.
After talking with Shadi, we knew the only way to find out for sure what happened to Sergia was to talk to someone in Aleppo.
We went back to our contact, put out another call.
We're looking for people from Aleppo who know the sandwich shop Sergia.
Mmm. Oh, my God. I mean, my daughter said, I did the cake.
She said, what do you mean you did cake?
Do something Syrian.
I forgot completely about it.
This is Faria. She's born and raised in Aleppo.
She came to the U .S. more than 30 years ago.
On the day we went to her house in the New York suburbs, she served us her homemade kanafeh.
It's a Middle Eastern cheese pastry soaked in simple syrup.
It's topped with a layer of thin little crispy bits, sort of like the shreds you see on some baklava that look like a bird's nest. Then on the inside, it's like a very sweet cheesecake filling, but a lot softer and oozier, almost like pudding.
It's bonkers. This is my specialty.
This is so good. Yeah, I mean, whenever I go, people say, I say, what do you want me to bring?
Please, can you bring us knafeh?
Faria has been back to Aleppo a few times since moving to the US, but not since the war started.
She remembers Sergia well.
It's a very simple restaurant.
From outside, you figure out it's like an ordinary place, Fadia knew the father who opened the restaurant in the 70s and the sons who took over after he passed away.
I think why he is famous, because of his generosity.
And maybe he cooked with a lot of love.
He doesn't cook like, ah, I just wanted to have the money.
No, he cooked from his heart, so he get really good quality.
Fadia still has family in Aleppo, so she asked that we not use her last name because they could get in trouble if the government finds out she spoke with us.
But her family there, they were our in.
She's still in regular contact with them.
So that's how it happened.
The one of Fadia's relatives walked into Surgia by the public garden in Aleppo and said, there's a radio show in New York that wants to talk to you.
I hope you're relaxed.
Sometimes they get scared to answer the phone if they don't know the...
We were in Fadia's living room.
We called with her iPad using an app called Viber that the Syrian government can't monitor.
Hello? Hello, marhaba?
Hello? Hello, ahlin, khayo, ahlin, kifak?
Salaam alaikum? Allah sallam, ahlin, akha, Ahmad Sergiya?
She says, is this Ahmad Sergiya?
after a long pause he says, yes Fahdia explains her family's connection to his she says, remember that guy who came in and said there's a radio show in New York that wants to talk to you I'm here with them now and Fahdia tells Ahmad it's just a show about food nothing political he says okay what do you want to ask him first?
first is how is he doing?
Getting a decent connection is a problem.
Another issue, there are a lot of things we can't ask without putting Ahmad in a tough position.
We can't ask him this question about how they are doing or anything.
What do you want to ask him?
About what? How are things in his restaurant?
Ahmad says the worst of the fighting has passed.
Things are better now.
The restaurant's open, more people are coming in.
Then we get disconnected again.
Despite Imad saying things are OK, Fadia is skeptical.
They bombed all this.
Now, you could say 10 % is safe, but I know it's not.
But we can't talk. You're a foreigner and he doesn't know you.
So you think even if things were bad there, he would be afraid to say it to us because he doesn't know who we are?
He can't, no. He can't say it to me.
We got Imad back on the line.
Ask him to describe the tongue sandwich in particular.
I don't speak Arabic.
Later on, I had this conversation translated.
But I have to say, just hearing Imad's voice coming out of the speaker in that moment, I found it very moving.
Knowing this voice was coming from a place that the news had told me was destroyed.
Early in the conversation, Imad was wary of us.
But when he started talking about his food, you could hear his passion.
He was a chef, excited to talk shop.
Ooh, seven hours. Seven hours what?
Seven hours for the tongue to get cured.
They add vinegar. It sounds like you're getting hungry just listening to this, Fadia.
Fadia tells Imad the joke I just made.
What about the brain?
The brain. Brain sandwich. and from there we proceeded to nerd out on Sergia's recipes with Imad Sergia the mayo is homemade and it has garlic in it the pickles vary depending on the season sometimes cucumbers, peppers if you ask for it they'll put a salad on your sandwich that's made from olives, thyme, oregano and lemon juice the brain is boiled with bay leaves, rosemary if you boil it too long it turns to mush It has to be just right, and you have to chill it to be able to slice it.
Imad says, we love our craft, we were raised doing it.
He said that they love what they're doing, and we say in Arabic, it's really, I have to explain it, they said when you cook with, they call it nafas, you know, like meditation, sentiment, like they, with a lot of love.
They love to cook and they love to eat.
They're number one.
After that, I had to ask another crucial question.
We had heard from some contacts that an outpost of Sirjiye had opened up in Istanbul.
And it is plausible.
A lot of Syrian families famous for a restaurant or bakery have migrated to Istanbul, Egypt, Dubai, places where there are a lot of Syrian refugees.
But there are also people opening up shops in those places and just ripping off the famous names, even though they have no connection to the original.
So I wanted to hear it from Imad.
We heard that there's a Sergia in Istanbul.
Can you ask him if it's part of his family that's opened that restaurant?
This is one of the workers that works for him.
He went and used his name, but he's in a good relationship with him.
He does everything that they do.
In other words, the Sergia in Istanbul, it's legit.
People from Toronto, his friends, they're asking him to come and open a place because his name very well.
So they wanted his name to put in there.
And so he's very well known, I'm telling you.
Is he going to do that?
If he can do it here, he would prefer to come here instead of going to Toronto.
If you get him a visa, he would love to come.
He thanks Moses and he wishes you to come to Syria In Shaa Allah you come to the place In Shaa Allah In Shaa Allah In Shaa Allah In Syria or New York or Toronto?
Anya mahal in sha Allah bihubbu yishufu Ya be New York ya be Syria ya be Toronto Ma Allah In shaa Allah In Shaa Allah You come to Syria and he will welcome you.
They're very generous.
They will welcome everybody.
Thank you, thank you very much. Shukran, shukran.
Ma 'a as -salami, ma 'a as -salami.
How does it make you feel to talk to him, to know that that place is still there?
I feel very much happy.
I mean, I feel happy because at least the people still have trust that this city is going to rebuild again because they keep saying that we are going to rebuild it again, we're coming back and to rebuild it.
The people who are in Germany they said we are coming back to rebuild this place.
We will never leave Aleppo.
I met up with Adam and Jen.
They're the couple you heard at the start of part one.
The ones who told me about Sergia in the first place.
It took me a while to track Issa down with your help, Adam.
He is living part of his time in Austria.
Wow. Austria, okay.
But he's still been going back to Aleppo fairly regularly.
Really? Yeah, his mother still lives there.
Wow. And he's okay and she's okay?
So far. Yeah. So far.
The sandwich place is called Sergia.
Surgia. Surgia. Surgia.
Yes. That is a familiar ring.
And that's the family name.
Uh -huh. Wait, so is it still going?
It still exists. It does?
It's still there. Oh my God.
Wow. That actually, I think I'm going to tear up a little bit.
That's hard to believe.
That makes me so happy to hear.
Wow. After that, there was one more person I had to report back to.
Shadi. These days, he works with a Syrian refugee organization in the US, which means he makes regular trips to Istanbul, where a lot of refugees have settled.
And as you'll recall, there's now a Sergiyah in Istanbul.
Shadi can't go back to Aleppo.
But how close can the sandwich get him?
Shadi, next time you're in Istanbul, I want you to go to Sergiyah.
Send me the bill. I'm going to buy you a sandwich. All right?
I don't worry about it.
Come on, just a sandwich?
You'll pay for something.
When I come to New York, take me to dinner in New York.
I'll pay for the sandwich. See, you are a good businessman.
Exactly. A counteroffer.
Yes, that's, you know, we have to negotiate nowadays.
All right, it's a deal.
You buy a sandwich at Sergiy in Istanbul.
You report back to me.
Next time you're in New York, dinner's on me.
That's the deal. Yeah.
You see this sign? Yeah, on the right?
Yeah, well. Is it? Yeah, no?
Now I see it. So let's go and have some sandwiches.
A few months after that conversation, Shadi was in Istanbul.
He met up with Dalia Mortada.
She's a Syrian -American food writer and reporter who was living in Istanbul at the time.
When Shadi first came into the restaurant, you could tell he was skeptical.
It's a little bit different.
What's different? The way everything is set up, the type of vegetables, the type of meats a little bit is different.
You would go there and you will see the meats like the mozzarella, the pastrama.
They're all hanging.
That's how it was in Aleppo.
You will see stuff hanging, you will see stuff in the fridge with the window, and you will see a lot of vegetables and a lot of stuff.
So that's the difference.
So the meats weren't displayed the same way and there were some unfamiliar menu items. They want more clients.
As much as Syrians are here, they're not that much as clients.
So this is why they have fried chicken, they have falafel, they have shawarma.
Back home they won't need that.
Shadi placed his order.
He assured me that he's doing it like he's supposed to.
No changes, no fancy stuff.
Don't do the European stuff.
I just saw the old Philippian sandwich, that's it.
Soon, it was time to eat.
This one is... This one's in the brain.
Let's check it out.
Perfect. The lemon. Same taste.
Takes you back home.
Just hits you. The taste.
or gut get flashbacks you know that's that's that's the problem that we always all facing they will try to remember the good stuff then when you get something like this you get everything back you know you recognize that you're not coming back you're not going back anymore there that's it that's how you're going to remember where you live.
At the time that Shadi ate that sandwich in Istanbul, he had no idea what the future would look like for Syria.
For the next few years after that, the Assad Assad government would strengthen its hold on the country.
There would be a little more stability, but Shadi would remain in exile.
Then, just last year, everything in Syria changed very quickly and very dramatically.
When that happened, many of you reached out to us asking for an update on Shadi.
Well, I'm pleased to tell you we taped a brand new interview with Shadi.
Yes, he has returned to Syria.
We will hear all about it this Monday.
This episode was originally produced by Anne Sani and me.
Dan Charles was our editor.
Casey Holford mixed this episode.
Additional production and editing from Peter Clowney, Dahlia Mortada, and Zach Rosen.
Special thanks to Adam Davidson, Jen Banbury, and Jamal Johar.
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.
And I'm Holly Rosby in Cleveland, Ohio, reminding you to eat more, eat better and eat more better.
the heat is here and your ac is working overtime to keep your home cool did you know a dirty air filter can make your ac unit work even harder keep your ac running smoothly while helping We'll be right back.
