Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Bedouin
When round him mid the burning sands, he saw
Fruits of the North in icy freshness thaw
And cooled his thirsty lip, beneath the glow
Of Mecca's sun, with urns of Persian snow.
Thomas Moore
Thomas Moore's 19th-century description of Bedouin delicacies, elaborated with sher-
bets and dainties, sounds enticing but the reality is far more prosaic. TE Lawrence mem-
orably describes a feast with the Arab Sheikh Sherif Nasir of Medina, in which he dips his
fingers into a mess of boiling hot lamb fat while ripping the meat from the carcass. This
was probably kebsa - a whole lamb stuffed with rice and pine nuts. The most prized
pieces of this dish are the sheep's eyeballs, which irreverent hosts delight to this day in
waving towards horrified Western guests.
The venue of preference for 'that special meal' for many Peninsula families is a well-lit grassy verge on a
highway with kebabs brought in by the kilo.
Mostly, Bedouin food consists of whatever is available at a particular time, and hunger
and thirst are far more attendant on a day's travelling in the desert than sumptuous feast-
ing. Camel's milk and goat's cheese are staple parts of the diet as are dried dates and, of
course, water. Water takes on a particularly precious quality when it is rationed and the
Bedouin are renowned for consuming very little, particularly during the day when only
small sips are taken, mostly to rinse the mouth.
The legendary hospitality of the Bedu means that travellers in the Empty Quarter (in
Saudi) or the Sharqiya Sands (Oman) who bump into a Bedouin camp are bound to be in-
vited to share 'bread and salt'. At the least this will involve Arabic coffee, camel's milk
and a thatch of dried meat, usually with a host of flies dancing in the bowl. The flies don't
harm the Bedu and it's unlikely they'll bother the traveller much either, but the milk can
upset a sensitive stomach.
THE SHEESHA EXPERIENCE
In any city across the Peninsula, two sensations mark the hot and humid air of an Arabian summer's evening: the
wreaths of scented peach-flavoured smoke that spiral above the corner coffeeshop and the low gurgle of water,
like a grumbling camel, in the base of the water pipe. Periodically banned by governments concerned for public
morality (the pipes are not narcotic - only time-wasting), and inevitably returned to the street corners by the will
of the people, these sheesha establishments are an indispensable part of Arabian social life.
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