Pary left her home in Kurdistan due to bombardment - but she kept a record of all the dishes she found on her travels

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A mother who was forced to leave her home in Kurdistan during a genocide has now opened her own restaurant, with the recipes she learnt while fleeing. Pary Baban came to London in 1995 after moving around a lot due to the bombardment from Saddam Hussain's regime in the 1980s.

But although she was displaced during her younger days, she kept a record of all the new dishes she discovered while travelling through different villages - little did she know that decades later these would be used in her own restaurant.

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Speaking to MyLondon, she said: "We came to London in 1995 with my older son and I was pregnant with my younger son, Rang, who was born in King's College Hospital. I was born in Kurdistan but when I came to London I always lived in Camberwell and Elephant and Castle. I love South East London so we stayed here. When Rang was born I went to college and studied - back home I was in Year 12 when I left.

"We were forced to seek asylum due to the war in Kurdistan so we had to be refugees in Iran in 1988 and then 1989. I stayed till 1993, then went back home but then the situation became worse, it wasn't safe so we had to flee Kurdistan and come to London."

Since she was young, Pary had always had an interest in cooking after seeing her grandmother and aunts, she learnt a lot from her grandma in the 1970s. However, one moment she recalls is with her grandfather when she was around 12 or 13-years-old.

She said: "I started cooking with my grandad when I was in Year 8, secondary school. He had guests over and I was alone with him at home, his friends came to visit and no-one was at home to cook.

"I was at home to study as I had exams but grandad said we have guests so we have to cook something - but my mum and aunts would usually prepare the Dolma. It was lunchtime so he showed me how to cook rice and chicken and the Dolma, I said, 'I don't know how', he said, 'I will show you how to do it', but I cooked the Dolma for one hour on the stove and it ended up all burnt at the bottom.

"From that time I started slowly cooking. I was always watching my aunts and mum baking bread, when I was around 18 I learnt everything."

A few years later she had to flee Kurdistan, and this is when she made the nine day journey to reach safety from South Kurdistan to East Kurdistan in 1988. During that journey Pary went to more than 20 villages while carrying a notebook with her to write down all the recipes she learnt.

"I was 16 or 17 and I wrote all the recipes but I lost that book," she said. "We went through Qandil mountain to Gwze village on the border. My father's side were living in East Kurdistan at the time and they took us to Bewran village between Qaladze and Sadarsht town.

"We went through Shin-wê, Nalas, Dukanan villages and stayed with my relatives. They were all farmers and shepherds and they were doing a lot of foraging and traditional cheese making. Every two days we were seeing and staying with one of them. It made me more interested in cooking and so I started asking them how they cook their food, what ingredients they use and wrote it down in my notebook (which we called a copy book).

"Then we travelled through East Kurdistan places like Mahabad, Xanyi, Naghada, and we took refuge in East Kurdistan for four to five years. During that time, my cooking skills started picking up because I had to cook for my mum and siblings. My mum never liked to cook and I took over the kitchen alongside my sisters, helping my mother to bake in a clay tandoor (oven) making Kulera and Naske Nan."

When Pary arrived in London, her husband and she worked hard to save up for a kiosk in a newsagents in Elephant and Castle. This is where they began selling sandwiches and Pary started to make her own.

Her son Rang said: "That's when she started to include her cooking in the newsagents, the odd sandwiches - then they applied to get another Kiosk next door and that was mum's little sandwich bar."

At the time, Rang was only three-years-old and since he was six-months-old Pary had put the kids in a nursery so that she could go to college to learn English and help her husband in the kiosk. He said: "People were asking for sandwiches and saying why don't you make your own sandwiches? So I started with an egg, onion, spinach and sumac sandwich, I said try this one, and they liked it! So I started making it from home and taking it to the kiosk."

Pary then introduced Kurdish stew, Dolma, lentil soup kubba dumplings and a lot of Kurdish foods to the kiosk, but in 2014 she was getting tired of being out in the cold with the kiosk being on the roadside. They looked for first brick and mortar site and found a place in 2016.

Now that you're here - let me introduce myself.

I am the Race and Diversity Correspondent for MyLondon, and I enjoy writing about stories to do with ethnic minorities.

The stories I'm most proud of are ones where I can get an insight into the experiences of individuals, such as this powerful independent woman who fled Eritrea and ended up opening her own salon in Brixton.

I also love supporting ethnic minority owned businesses and finding out about owners' own experiences and inspirations behind their menus, for example the story of this Chinese bakery.

My own interests and experiences also weave into my stories so that readers can get an insight into my South Asian heritage, as you can see from this story about Karak Chai which I'm ever so passionate about!

Although I was born and raised in London, I would say I'm very connected to my own culture as a British Pakistani who is fluent in Urdu.

This year I became a finalist for the British Muslim Awards in the Media Achiever of the Year category - and I hope to make a difference every single year with my work.

Got a story? If so, get in touch by emailing unzela.khan@reachplc.com

But luck was on her side - in 2014 just two years before she opened the restaurant, a relative called her with some good news.

She said "One of my relatives called me and said your book is with me and you had all these recipes, she said 'do you want it back?' I said 'of course I do!' It was just before opening the shop, the recipes were from tribal areas and each tribe has their own food, they are similar to our dishes, but they serve differently.

"For example we have different foods according to the seasons and every season different, Kurdish people are heavily reliant on what's around us in terms of seasons, wild herbs, nuts, anything we can find."

You can visit Nandine to try Pary's menu on 45 Camberwell Church St, London SE5 8TR.

Do you have a story you think we should be covering? If so, email unzela.khan@reachplc.com

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