Always Carry Salt

A life-affirming memoir about resilience and repair—and the healing power of our ancestor’s music, stories, and recipes.

Samantha’s mother tongue is dying out. The daughter of Iraqi Jewish refugees, Samantha grew up surrounded by the noisy, vivid, hot sounds of Judeo–Iraqi Arabic. A language that’s now on the verge of extinction.

The realization that she won’t be able to tell her son he’s “living in the days of the aubergines” or “chopping onions on my heart” or reminding him to “always carry salt” opens the floodgates. The questions keep coming. How can she pass on this heritage without passing on the trauma of displacement? Will her son ever love mango pickle?

In her search for answers Samantha encounters demon bowls, the perils of kohl, and the unexpected joys of fusion food. Her journey transports us from the clamor of Noah’s Ark to the calm of the British Museum, from the Oxford School of Rare Jewish Languages to the banks of the River Tigris. As Samantha considers what we lose and keep, she also asks what we might need to let go of to preserve our culture and ourselves.