In 2014, a group of asylum-seekers staying at a refugee center in the Italian region of Veneto refused to eat the meals they had been given for two days, calling for meals from their own countries. Critics labeled them ungrateful, pointing out that many of those entering the country do not have the resources to eat three meals a day. As the debate over the responsibility of caring for asylum-seekers in Europe rages on, Italy struggles to provide resources to the tens of thousands of individuals to which the government has granted asylum. Using primarily ethnographic approaches of participant-observation, in-depth interviews, and discourse analysis, this paper investigates the importance of food practices for refugee identities as they navigate the process of being granted protection in a country that is unable to provide legally guaranteed social services. This paper explores the ways that Middle Eastern refugee communities in Rome, Italy forge collective spaces of belonging through commensality and how alimental spaces act as points of congregation where varied memories of places and foods as ‘home’ converge to shape a larger social identity for Middle Eastern refugees in Rome.