Author and Entrepreneur Hawa Hassan
Photo credit: Khadija M. Farah
After pursuing a career in modeling, author and entrepreneur Hawa Hassan would later discover that food is an important vessel to tell stories that connect human experiences across cultures.
Hawa’s story begins in Somali where she says her childhood was “very, very happy.” After turning four, there was a shift as civil unrest in the country eventually led to her family fleeing for Kenya. Hawa was briefly settling into her new homeland and at the age of seven, a sponsorship opportunity for a girl presented itself and the difficult decision was made to have her move to Seattle, Washington in 19 where she would complete her schooling before moving to New York to pursue a career in modeling.
She would reconnect with her mother for the first time since moving to America in 2008. “We were in the midst of getting to know each other and her seeing me as a fully developed adult, she was blown away at like my hair and my skin. She was so shocked, she was like, “This kid came back to me as one. She’s a whole person,” Hawa shares of the memory.
In 2014, her focus began to shift and slowly food took on a different meaning beyond sustenance. For Hawa, food became a vessel by which to tell stories that connect people across cultures and experiences. She would later pen “In Bibi’s Kitchen,” which captures recipes and stories from eight east African grandmothers, cementing her work as a storytelling with a James Beard Award.
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Sharing Stories of Food and Displacement
In her upcoming sophomore book, “Setting a Place for Us: Recipes and Stories of Displacement, Resilience, and Community,” Hawa combines her intimate understanding of displacement with interviews, recipes, and stories that span global borders.
The beautifully photographed book sheds light on the importance of preserving recipes and food traditions in places of conflict and migration, weaving together profoundly personal narratives and 75 vibrant recipes from eight countries impacted by conflict – Afghanistan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt, El Salvador, Iraq, Lebanon, Liberia, and Yemen – to tell stories of resilience, survival, and the universal language of food.
Hawa shares more about how her personal experience as a Somali refugee continues to influence the lens in which she views food and identity in this conversation.
After the conversation, continue to connect with Hawa and her food line Basbaas online on online and follow her work on social media.
