Sonnenallee: Recipes From The Street - Ayami Awazuhara (Zitto Editions)

Ayami Awazuhara, a chef and artist based in Berlin, explores cultural heritage through a marriage of food and photography in a culinary guidebook centering the diverse world of Sonnenallee in Berlin. For this special edition, the cookbook is paired with a series of three prints of photos Awazuhara took along Sonnenallee. 

Sonnenallee, a street in Neukölln where Turkish and Arabic are just as useful as German and English, marks a heart of immigrant life and culture in Berlin. The distinctly un-German food of Sonnenallee, from ma’amoul cookies to shawarma, represents the transmutation of Arab and Turkish culture to German contexts. Fascinated first by the cuisine of Sonnenallee and then by the stories of the people who made it, Awazuhara embarked on a project to understand and then to teach others about the rich food culture of Arabic and Turkish immigrant communities in Berlin. Through conversations with vendors and shoppers, mothers and children, Awazuhara discovered some of the most vital recipes of the street.

Awazuhara’s work is grounded in the philosophy that food carries stories, history, and connections. While food itself is ephemeral and short-lasting, the recreation of often ancient recipes in foreign places allows immigrant communities to grasp their histories. The combination of Awazuhara’s photographic works with the recipes that shape the world of Sonnenallee transforms food from something to be bought and temporarily enjoyed into something of depth and impact. To taste and to make these recipes, to view the photos, is to understand that each dish brings with it not just flavor, but rather also stories of cultural resilience, adaptation, and continuity.

All proceeds from sales of this booklet go to Doctors Without Borders to support their work providing medical care for people suffering in humanitarian crises.