Before Chinese-Indonesian chef Michelle Santoso was known for her viral Palestinian cooking videos, she was known as ‘Aunty Michelle,’ whipping up Chinese dishes in a mumsy nightie with rollers in her hair, playing the role of a conventional Chinese aunt. But when Israel’s relentless assault on Gaza began in October 2023, Michelle immediately brought her comical alter-ego to a halt.
Like many in Indonesia, Michelle started to share the horrific images, video footage and death stats that were coming out of Gaza on her Instagram stories but soon felt that it was falling on deaf ears. She needed to think up a new way to speak about Palestine, in a medium that would be receptive to her followers.
“How come we overlook people who are getting mass murdered on live cameras? These are the same people who were mothers and I just really wanted to bring that point home”
“I was talking to my girlfriends at the time and I told them, ‘It’s weird that I have never cooked any Palestinian food or explored Palestinian cuisine and I think I am just going to start,’ and they said, ‘You should!’” she tells The New Arab.
“That was probably the first time I thought, ‘I’m going to, cook a Palestinian dish on camera and whatever happens, happens.’ I decided to put narration over it, because [Palestine] was an important thing to discuss,” Michelle adds.
“At the heart of every dish is always a mother cooking it. How come we overlook people who are getting mass murdered on live cameras? These are the same people who were mothers and I just really wanted to bring that point home, and that we can’t ignore something happening right before our eyes,” she says.
As Israel expanded its war into Lebanon, Michelle again showed her solidarity by cooking staple Lebanese dishes.
Authentic Palestinian cuisine on camera
From the universally known makloubeh, to traditional dishes from the heart of Gaza such as maftoul, kufta bi wara’ enab and qidreh, Michelle has spent over a year cooking authentic Palestinian cuisine on camera, her soothing narration speaking of the universality of motherhood, family, losing loved ones and grief and how it relates to the very people who eat these comforting dishes.
She has not shied away from using cooking to speak openly about the atrocities being committed to Gazans. With what she describes as a vacuum of information, she intended for her videos to be informative and hoped that through the medium of cooking delicious food, something enjoyed by everyone regardless of their background, viewers would actually start to fathom what is happening in Palestine.
“The whole point was not only to ease the viewers [into what is happening in Gaza] but also to say, ‘We’re all human beings. We’re all family members. We’re all mothers. We all at one point were children of mothers,’” she says.
“Once I can give people that reminder, then I can transition into talking about the heavier topics. It is hard to look at all of these things, but you have to remember what it’s like to be in that situation. People just need that reminder too. Watching so much of this you sort of feel desensitised to it over time and I don’t want people to get desensitised. I don’t want people to look away and I know what it’s like to feel like this. ‘This is too much. I can’t look at it.’ But then I also remind myself, if looking at it is hard, then living it must be harder.”
“Without realising it, I was cooking historic recipes, and then once I knew I was cooking historical recipes, it just gave it so much more meaning and was so much more profound”
Michelle says at first, she was worried about appropriating the dishes or that they would not be received well, but her fears were quickly laid to rest, as she says the reception to her Palestinian cooking content has been astronomical.
It is evident just from watching her videos that she has taken her time to research each recipe, its origins and its ingredients. In one of her videos, she makes maftoul, Palestinian cous cous which is cooked alongside herbs, spices, chickpeas and chicken, by hand, a long and laborious task, as maftoul is not available to buy in Jakarta.
Michelle came to find out that the painstaking method of making the large bulgar grains from scratch was the exact method used by grandmothers and generations before them in Palestine, making it a real labour of love. Akkawi cheese, used in recipes such as Palestinian kunafeh, is another ingredient she says she could not find in Jakarta, which meant she had to make that from scratch too.
“Without realising it, I was cooking historic recipes, and then once I knew I was cooking historical recipes, it just gave it so much more meaning and was so much more profound. And then it made me think, ‘How come more people don’t know about this?’” she says.
“I really wanted to learn where the food comes from, how it’s cooked, who cooks it, who it is served to. I’ve come to find that it’s very much family recipes and family gatherings, and I wanted to talk about that aspect, that lives in everyone’s homes – the humanity of food that is served by mothers and grandmothers in people’s homes.”
Empathy through shared history
Not everyone online has reacted positively to Michelle’s Palestinian dishes. She shares that she has had hate from Zionist and pro-Israel Instagram users and with her American accent, many Americans have mistaken her for being an American, branding her as a ‘liberal.’
“I’m like, ‘I don’t know what that even means because I’m Indonesian!’” she laughs.
The daughter of Chinese immigrants to Indonesia from Shanghai, Michelle considers herself a first-generation Indonesian. She says people have been confused as to why a Chinese-Indonesian chef would be speaking about Palestine, but she says this is not unusual in Indonesia. Historically, Indonesians have always shown support for Palestine and its history is taught to Indonesians from a young age.
“We were also taught about colonisation, so, it wasn’t hard for me to understand what was happening in Palestine,” she adds. “I often think about if the Dutch had never left, what would have become of Indonesia? Where would that have placed me?” she continues.
“I think about all of these things because they are tied to each other and I think, if we were facing a genocide, would people also be screaming out for our freedom? It seems like the world is mostly silent when it shouldn’t be because it could literally happen to any country.”
Yousra Samir Imran is a British Egyptian writer and author based in Yorkshire. She is the author of Hijab and Red Lipstick, published by Hashtag Press
Follow her on X: @UNDERYOURABAYA