Arabic Hospitality

Thursday night was the final night for our good friend Stan “The Man” Plante. As a special going away gesture our new friend and colleague, Reham, invited us ex-pats to her home for a traditional dinner. When we arrived we were greeted by much of her immediate family; her two brothers, one of their wives and their two little boys; her two sisters, one of their husbands, and her mother. We began what would be a memorable evening with a small cup of Arabic coffee as we sat in the living room getting to know one another. Shortly thereafter the parade of food started and it became obvious that this was the focus of the evening. My first thought as I watched the massive platters of food being brought into the dining room was that her mother must have been cooking all day long. We sat down at the table to a spread of the most traditional of all Jordanian dishes; mensaf, as well as homemade stuffed grape leaves, stuffed eggplant and zucchini, and kibbeh. To drink they had a made a special fruit juice beverage with apricots called amar al-deen. The drink is made with dried apricot sheets (just like fruit rollups) that are soaked in hot water overnight and then chilled.

I’ve discussed mensaf in this blog previously but this was the real deal. In fact I’ve had it a few times before this night, but nowhere close to this tasty. I find out that they had purchased an entire lamb for this feast and everything but the head (traditionally the head is also placed on the platter to show the guests that the bounty was legit, but they were afraid to scare the foreigners) was laid out on the three foot diameter platter, topped with slivered almonds and toasted pine nuts, over a bead of rice and a special paper thin bread used exclusively for mensaf. On the side was a giant bowl of “soup” which is really a sauce that binds the whole thing together. The sauce is made with a dehydrated yogurt ball (Jameed; hard as a rock initially) that is softened in water and then mixed with the water that was used to stew the lamb all day. The result is a succulent sauce that soaks into the rice when ladled over the dish.

The stuffed grape leaves were delicate, about the size of my pinky finger,

and stuffed with minced lamb, rice and tomatoes. The stuffed zucchini and eggplant were also smaller versions of the vegetables than what we find in the States, hollowed out from the top and stuffed with a similar mixture of minced lamb, rice and spices, then baked. Delicious. The kibbeh was an added treat. I’d had these before at a cafeteria style place which did not at all do them justice. The outside of this oblong sphere is made with bulgur wheat and minced beef which acts as a shell for a filling of spiced minced meat. Perfect little appetizers that I could eat all day. Initially I thought that the presentation and quantity of food was the most startling thing, but I soon realized that it was their Jordanian hospitality and pride in their food that was the most special part. Before I was even a third of the way through what had been spooned onto my plate, one of the family members would get up from their chair and insist on putting more food and/or “soup” in my dish. By the time Reham was unloading a fifth or sixth piece of lamb onto my plate, along with more heaping scoops of rice and “soup”, I was so full that I had to literally undo my belt buckle. The family said that the goal was for us to finish the entire platter, but as you can see from the pictures, even with more than a dozen people eating, we were not able to do so.

After we all pleaded with them to stop dishing out more food (“Halles!”) they reluctantly agreed and I struggled to hoist myself out of the chair. We retired back to the living room where we were given more Arabic coffee to help us digest. Oh, but we weren’t done. Next came desert; kunaffe which is the amazing cheese desert with syrup and crispy pastry that I mentioned having downtown earlier during my trip. I felt bad, but I couldn’t eat more than a third of it. I was starting to feel light-headed as the blood rushed from my brain to try and help my under matched, almost bursting stomach, but managed to try a fresh date that had me very intrigued. I’d never eaten a fresh date before (only dried) and found it to be very good. We sat around and talked for a while and I had no problem sucking down a nice cup of Turkish coffee as I munched on some mixed nuts later in the evening.

In all it reminded me of an Italian dinner; multiple courses, coffee, and nuts at the end, all taking place over the course of four hours when plenty of talking and laughing. As the time approached 11:00pm we realized that Stan still needed to finish packing before heading to the airport for his 3am flight. We thanked our hosts profusely and commented on how truly special it was to have been invited into someone’s home and treated with such hospitality. A unique and exceptional evening provided to us by our new and most gracious Jordanian friends.