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What Syrian food lacks in variety, it makes up for in delicious,
fresh flavours and savoury spices. Damascenes are tremendously
proud of their local food and are not big consumers of the
food of other cultures - Chinese or Mexican, for example.
There are a few ethnic restaurants in the large hotels, but
most of the restaurant you'll see in Damascus serve Syrian
food.
A few burger and pizza joints have popped up recently. Their
interpretations of classic Western food are often amusing,
but surprisingly tasty. You might find hamburgers that contain
fried eggs or french fries. The Syrian interpretation of pizza,
while probably not giving Chicago or Napoli a run for the
money, is quite good. It's got the usual array of ingredients
- sausage, cheese, tomato sauce - but the seasonings are distinctly
Arabic.
Visiting a Restaurant
There are many restaurants in Damascus serving traditional
Syrian fare. Most of the time, there is no menu - so no worries
about reading Arabic! You simply chose the type of meat you
want. Every meal you eat will likely include lots of flat
bread. The bread doubles as a utensil - for picking up bits
of food - or a napkin, for discreetly wiping a bit of dip
off your fingers. Western style cutlery is available, but
it's much more fun to eat "arab style" grabbing
bites of food with small pieces of bread. It's considered
haram, shameful, to throw away all but the smallest
pieces of bread, but this is a cultural habit that is more
likely to be followed in private homes rather than in restaurants.
You see a lot of groups of families in restaurants - mom,
dad and all the kids - and not so many small couple groups.
Syrians seem to love to move around in large groups. Nargilas,
or hookahs (smoking tobacco pipes), will often be enjoyed
throughout the meal, seemingly as a sort of "palate cleanser"
between courses. Live music is extremely popular in restaurants,
everything from a single oud player playing quiet, traditional
songs to a larger ensemble playing lively, loud pop-sounding
tunes.
Eating at home with a Syrian Family
Everyone eats together, men, women and children, in restaurants
and homes. There's none of the segregation of women that you
may see in other Arab countries. The children seem to run
free, but are surprisingly well behaved as they switch off
clambering up into Mom and Dad's lap alternately. Children
are doted on, shown an incredible amount of affection, yet
seem unspoiled, cheerful and extremely well mannered. Eating
at someone's home, is likely to be very informal with everyone
talking, laughing and dipping their spoons from serving dish
to mouth! Of course the degree of fastidiousness and formality
will vary depending on whether you are actually part of the
family, or an honoured guest.
4 Courses of Heaven
At a restaurant or home, you'll likely start with an array
of mezze (appetizers) which could include hummus
(chick pea dip), baba ganoush (eggplant and
yoghurt dip) - often freshly made and delicious, a variety
of zaytuun - green olives, black olives, olives
with tomato or hot sauce and always with pits. Wharich
ayeneb (Stuffed grape leaves) much like Greek dolma
are popular - stuffed with rice and lamb. Makdous
- tiny, tangy eggplants stuffed with walnuts and marinated,
and a variety of chopped raw vegetables like radishes are
especially popular, as are green onions! You also see turnips,
dyed bright fuschia pink which have an unusual, slightly bitter
yet sour, vinegary taste.
The next course will likely be salads - traditional
salad offerings include taboulleh - a popular
parsley, radish, tomato and lemon juice salad or fatoosh
which has lettuce, tomatoes, lemon juice and chopped up flatbread
seasoned with sumac and lemon juice. The sumac
seasoning is not the North American variety, which is poisonous,
but a different Arabic variety perfectly suitable as a seasoning
for food. You also might see a chopped salad of cucumbers,
green peppers, tomatoes, onions and parsley with either lemon
juice, sumac and olive oil or a yoghurt dressing. Salad seasonings
will vary slightly by region, but contain the same basic ingredients.
The main course is grilled skewers of chicken or lamb - beef
is available, but not popular - in the form of kabobs.
Kefte kabob is ground meat formed into balls
or chunks with seasonings. Kibbeh may be served,
yummy little balls of bread surrounding a filling of ground
meat and walnuts with seasoning. You might see fatah,
which is ground meat mixed with browned almonds and parsley,
served over a soupy bed of hummus and a drizzle of olive oil
-a VERY rich dish that is also used as a dip for bread.
After dinner, it's into the streets for dessert, to stroll
and gossip with the neighbours! Damascus has an amazing array
of sweet shops, and many of them stay open quite late to offer
goodies to the "after dinner" crowd. You'll see
a lot of slices of quite elaborate cake - gateaux - and small
round balls that look like shiny doughnuts. These are baklawa
which taste like doughnut balls soaked in honey. Another dessert
which is more likely to be served at home, for a special occasion
is RuzHalib - a rice pudding served in an enormous
pan, which everyone attacks with spoons! Yallah! Bring your
toothbrush to Damascus, the sweets will make your teeth ache!
Street Food
One of Damascus' many charms is the street food, which is
everywhere. You won't walk far without seeing a shwarma
stand - the operators dressed in spotless white outfits and
make a great show of cutting your shwarma into a sandwich.
Syrian style shwarma is absolutely delicious - and hard to
compare with anything in the States or other Arab countries.
Great spits of juicy chopped chicken roast all day, turning
slowly. The shwarma seller begins by pressing a flat bread
up against the meat spit, absorbing some of the juices, then
briefly against the metal grill, to grill the bread a touch.
Shwarma is deftly sliced off in small chunks, careful to
catch perfectly browned pieces, followed by a dollop of garlic
mayonnaise mixed with yoghurt and slices of very sour pickles.
The flatbread is rolled up and wrapped in wax paper. Yummy!
The average price in Damascus is 50 Syrian lira (about US
50 cents), so even travellers on a budget can enjoy shwarma
to their hearts content!
Another popular snack is falafel - dollops
of chick peas deep fried to a golden brown crunchy outside,
with a chewy interior - just like it's served in other countries
- but somehow it's more delicious in Damascus than anywhere
else. The balls are wrapped up like shwama, in flatbread and
served with tomato and onion slices.
Fuul is found everywhere in Damascus on colourful
carts. It's a soupy mix of chick peas, lemon juice and fava
beans eaten for breakfast. These are like small popcorn carts,
with a large colander in the middle filled with fuul, served
hot and fresh all day. It's spooned into dishes, then you
squeeze a couple lemon wedges into it - sharp and tangy. Don't
walk away with the dish, you'll get a proper crockery dish
and a real spoon to use while you eat your fuul standing near
the cart.
Regional Dishes
Syrians love to have fun, go out to restaurants, stroll through
the streets or stay home and entertain guests and family.
If you are able to experience the hospitality of a local family
during your travels in Syria it's likely to be a memorable
and enjoyable experience.
If you're lucky, and get invited into a private home, you
can experience regional dishes not often found in restaurants.
The Druze who live in Damascus in the south of Syria
and all around the Golan Heights area have many dishes
that are very distinctive, and are specific to that group.
One such dish is cousa - which look and taste
like tiny zucchini. The seeds on the inside are scooped out
and replaced with a mixture of seasoned lamb and rice. They
are then cooked in either a thin tomato soup, or a rich white
soup that has a delicious milky/buttery taste.
A dish that has many varieties is fassouli
- a name for a stew with meat and vegetables. The recipes
vary by family or region - one version may include ground
meat, white beans and a tomato sauce, another chunks of lamb,
tomato sauce and okra. Rice is added before eating.
Breakfast in Arab countries often includes soup. One of these
breakfast soups is called kishk - a very traditional
Druze dish, and not found commonly outside Druze areas. This
is a sort of potato soup with chopped up potatoes and meat
in a tangy, milky soup.
Tomato or lentil soup is sometimes served for breakfast. Other
wakeups are bread, olives, hard boiled eggs and sliced tomatoes
sprinkled with Arabic spices and lots of lemon juice. Plenty
of shay, tea, to wash it down. Breakfast can also include
fuul, or feteh - which is fuul
and hummus mixed together with pieces of flatbread, and spooned
into bowls with olive oil on top. Warning: this dish is very
rich and may make you want to go back to sleep!
Hot drinks to wash it all down
Damascenes drink tea all day - frequenting the many
shops around the city. In the souks, adorable young boys carry
large trays of small tea glasses for the shopkeepers. Coffee,
kahwa, is like the Turkish variety, brown,
thick and strong, drunk in tiny espresso cups. "American
style" coffee - kahwa amreekee - is usually
Nescafe. Syrians drink both shay and kahwa with plenty of
sugar.
Another hot drink is muggeli - a spicy, tea
with the taste of allspice and cinnamon, sometimes made with
walnuts floating on top. This drink is traditionally served
to mothers after giving birth. Also hot is a drink called
kammun, usually drunk in the winter - cumin,
salt and water.
Whether you see any or all the varieties of food described
here, one thing is for sure - you're not likely to go hungry
in Damascus! Old Damascus and the new areas of the city also
provide lots of opportunities to work off the calories, walking
around this gorgeous and historical place. "Mabrook"
meaning "happy" - you will be!
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