Last April, one day after the chemical attack in Khan Shaykhun, Syria, Tamara Briggs’s aunt and uncle fled their hometown, Jisr al-Shughur, 62 miles northwest. Two days later a bomb took out the building next door, which in turn flattened their house. “They’re in Aleppo now,” Briggs says.
Over 26 years Exotic Bakeries & Syrian Cuisine, evolved into a kind of full-service deli—something that doesn’t actually exist in Syria. It’s also been the sole proprietor of Syrian food in Ann Arbor, and one of the very few in the Detroit metropolitan area. Even in nearby Dearborn—which has the largest proportion of Arab-Americans in the U.S. and is the country’s promised land for great Middle Eastern food—there’s only one dedicated Syrian restaurant.
Jisr al-Shughur was an early flash point in the Syrian civil war, the site of clashes between armed militias and government security forces, prompting a crackdown by the Syrian military that led most of its civilian population to flee. Since then control has shifted back and forth between the government and a variety of Islamist insurgent groups. One cousin fled after the Al-Nusra Front (also referred to as Al Qaeda in Syria) kidnapped him, held him for two weeks, and then released him with a warning.
“Syrian people cook at home,” she says. “And this is home cooking. When they go out they eat stuff they don’t get to make. Stuff that takes a long time.”
1721 Plymouth Rd., Courtyard Shops Ann Arbor, MI 734-665-4430 exoticbakeries.com
