Crossroads, No. 4: Saqib Keval's Crispy Beef Tacos
A nostalgic childhood dish that comes by way of Ethiopian, Indian, Mexican, and American foodways
Crossroads is a column where we explore Asian immigrant stories through the lens of food. A challenge immigrants often face in a new environment is not having the access to the same ingredients as they did in the motherland—and one way they end up adapting is by turning what they do have available into familiar dishes that remind them of home. This act of culinary resourcefulness and creativity results in quirky, in-between cuisine that beautifully showcases the experience of growing up with a multicultural identity. We’re not talking fusion cuisine here (as in, stuff that would be served in a restaurant or marketed to the masses) but rather, food that’s simultaneously rooted in tradition and innovation—not to mention, becomes deeply personal to immigrants and their families. You can check out TOD’s archive of past recipes here.
Mexico City and Oakland-based chef and activist Saqib Keval knows through experience how food can weave personal stories of migration patterns and political movements. Generations ago, his family—Kutchis who hailed from Northwestern India—were part of a group that migrated to East Africa to find work. After sailing across the Indian Ocean, many dispersed upon reaching the new continent; some stayed in Yemen, while others continued south to make their home in Uganda or Tanzania. The majority of Saqib’s family, however, ultimately settled between Ethiopia and coastal Kenya. Even to this day, much of the cognizance Saqib has of his South Asian roots is through the lens of his East African heritage.
“I was raised in the Bay Area—but always with this idea of home being Kenya and Ethiopia,” he tells me. “Even my understanding of South Asian cuisine and cooking techniques are ‘translated’ through East Africa. That’s what I grew up with.”
Saqib’s parents were the first in their families to arrive stateside. His father arrived in California to attend college after finishing high school in South India; civil unrest and revolution back in Ethiopia made it difficult to return home—not to mention, had stripped the family of money and their social standing. He worked at a gas station and sold cars he rebuilt to put himself through school, later sending for his brothers and sisters to join him once he got his first apartment. Saqib’s mother hailed from a rural, but privileged farming community in coastal Kenya, and was the first to attend university; she worked as an academic and professor before getting married.
A working class family in Sacramento, they supported not only their children but also parents and siblings who were arriving in the United States post-revolution to seek more opportunities. Upon graduation, Saqib’s father worked a computer job in the Bay Area that required him to commute two and a half hours every day. Saqib’s mother cared for the family while pursuing another masters degree—and, with everybody living under one roof, she took on the Herculean task of ensuring everyone was well cared-for, well-supported, and, of course, well-fed.
“She’s holding this house together, making pennies become hundreds of dollars,” Saqib says. “Making that shit work and stretching everything, raising me and my brother, being a stay-at-home mom, but also going to school and getting her teaching degree.”
Saqib recalls growing up eating primarily Ethiopian food, mostly because his mother prepared it to accommodate her in-laws. Often on the menu was wot, a traditional Ethiopian stew, which is made by cooking meat in niter kibbeh (spiced clarified butter, a staple in Ethiopian cuisine) with onion, ginger, and berbere (a vibrant, aromatic spice blend—which, according to Saqib, she obtained via family members visiting from Ethiopia, who’d bring over suitcases full of the stuff). Saqib and his brother, on ther other hand, became enamored with the Bay Area’s diverse food scene and were exposed to Mexican, Puerto Rican, and Filipino cuisine at their neighbors’ cookouts. They clamored for fast food—Saqib recalls how much he adored hard shell tacos—but since money was tight and eating out was reserved only for special occasions, his mother had to find a creative workaround to satisfy her children’s cravings for Americana fare.
“She’d go to the discount grocery store and buy packs of hard shell tacos that were damaged,” he recalled, “then use that to make taco kits of Ethiopian spiced ground beef, shredded lettuce, cheese, and salsa that she’d make by mixing chopped tomatoes with some achaar that we had in the fridge. That would be the whole thing. It’s the flavor that I crave. It was brilliant—four or five cultures at the same time.”
“I feel like that dish, those hard shell tacos, was her meeting all these different requirements of cooking classic Ethiopian food for her in-laws and my dad’s brothers and sisters,” he adds. “All that food would be split among the family, and she’d use those leftovers to create the food that my brother and I were craving as part of our American lifestyle.”
Today, Saqib and his wife/business partner, Norma Listman, run Masala y Maíz, a restaurant in Mexico City that uses food to explore the migration and political movements between South Asia, East Africa, and Mexico. Their food, based on their families’ recipes and histories, is described as a mestizaje—a blending of cultures over many generations, a true testament to how food can be a showcase of deeply personal narratives and histories. Even to this day, those spiced beef tacos are a fond childhood food memory for Saqib, a manifestation of his family’s journey and migrant lineage. “I still love it, I love hardshell tacos—any type of fast food,” he tells me. “I still love it like I love Americana food. That’s the food that I cook for staff meals, or cook at home.”