A life-affirm­ing mem­oir about resilience, lan­guage, 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 clam­our 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.

Always Car­ry Salt is an immer­sive and mov­ing med­i­ta­tion on the words and tra­di­tions that shape us and what we car­ry for­ward into future generations.