Today's Edition
AMEINAH ALZEYOUDI (ABU DHABI)
Two Emirati women are demonstrating how traditional cuisine can become a platform for cultural exchange, creativity, and social impact by using their love of food to preserve the UAE's culinary legacy, encourage aspiring female entrepreneurs, and forge deep connections within the community.
Despite having different career paths, Emirati chef and businesswoman Abeer Al Louz and chef Mariam Almansoori, the founder of Kashtat Amina restaurant, are dedicated to using food to unite people and transmit important knowledge and customs.
Almansoori's desire to express her creativity while preserving her cultural identity motivated her to transition from engineering to cooking.
"I benefit from the precision, organisation, and attention to detail that engineering taught me in the kitchen today. However, I was inspired to take this action by my love of cooking and my desire to use it as a means of self-expression," she said.
Her restaurant, Kashtat Amina, combines traditional cuisine with a setting inspired by family get-togethers and shared memories, reflecting the warmth of Emirati hospitality.
"Emirati food tells a tale of family, community and home." Every recipe reflects our history and surroundings and carries a memory, according to Almansoori.
According to her, in order to preserve traditional cuisine and make it appealing to younger generations, it is necessary to preserve the key flavours, ingredients and preparation techniques that give each dish its unique identity.
Almansoori stated that through events, cooking classes and culinary experiences, she hopes to expose a larger audience to the variety of Emirati cuisine. Additionally, she wants to support initiatives for knowledge-sharing and training opportunities for Emirati women who want to work in the culinary arts.
After working in banking for six years, Al Louz made the decision to explore entrepreneurship and follow her passion for creating sweets, which marked the beginning of her transition into the food industry.
Before starting Tajroba, a baking and confectionery-focused training programme, in 2019, she founded Articulate Sweets in 2009. She fosters teamwork and creativity while assisting participants in gaining useful skills through workshops held in Arabic.
Al Louz claimed that prior to her love of cooking, she became interested in business management, which inspired her to seek business training and eventually launch her own businesses.
Her work has gone beyond financial success to include community involvement, such as workshops for kids, the deaf and senior citizens. In 2018, she also took part in workshops for children who were Syrian refugees in Jordan; this experience served as inspiration for her next training project.
Seeing participants use what they have learned in their own homes is what Al Louz finds most fulfilling about her work.
She described this transfer of practical knowledge as one of her greatest accomplishments, saying: "When people can learn here and return to their homes with simple tools, they can prepare the same products they find in the market."
Cooking classes, in her opinion, teach participants cooperation, teamwork, and the value of learning from one another in addition to recipes.
Al Louz emphasised the value of tenacity, creativity and ongoing development in creating a profitable company when giving advice to would-be business owners.
In addition to giving women the chance to advance their careers and pursue entrepreneurship, both chefs show how food can act as a bridge between generations and cultures.
