Food, Food, Food, and Food

One of my favorite sayings is "I don't eat to live, I live to eat." In Jordan, people don't live to eat as much as they live to feed. The first question I get from most people I meet here is what foods I've had since being here. As a culture that puts a premium on being welcoming and hospitable, they want to make sure that I have been welcomed in the traditional Arabic way, by forcing mountains of food on me. I have a confession to make,: I'm terrible at remembering the names of foods here. My theory is that it's because somewhere between my brain signaling the release of endorphins and it signaling I'm full, I turn it off so I can mindlessly eat more than I should humanly be able to. It's also a possibility that once they put the food in front of me, I hone in on the deliciousness that awaits me and lose focus on everything else. No matter what the reason for me forgetting the names of the foods I've eaten here, I'm going to do my best to work through some of my experiences with food and recall them, first so my Mom can stop worrying if I've eaten enough, and second because food is a central part of Jordanian culture.

We'll start it off with breakfast, my personal favorite meal of the day. Back in the states I'm used to waking up in the morning, rolling out of bed, and pouring myself a bowl of sugary pellets to start off my morning. Interestingly enough, one of Jordan's main imports is cereal, so you would think that I could stay pretty close to my typical routine while here. That's a bit far from the truth. Most mornings here, my host mother sets out a spread. After the spread is laid out, my host my turns on their gas stove, and heats up some خبز (Khabaz) which directly translated means bread, but that's slightly misleading. Bread in Arabic is something closer to a pita, and once my host mother heats it up, she puts it on a plate for me, and I rip off little pieces and use them as I dip, scoop, and devour the delicious spread that is in front of me. Starting from the right and going left, the typical spread in my house starts with oil and zatar. Olive oil is everywhere here, because we're living in the land of olives. Regretfully, olives are one of the few foods that I really don't like, but olive oil I enjoy. What you do is you get the little chunk of bread you ripped off, you dip it in the oil, then you dip it in the zatar, which is an herb that is crushed up and put on a plate for you to obtain with the help of the oil on your bread. Zatar has a little bit of a bite to it. It's a little bit crunchy and is sort of just a little seasoning for the bread, like putting salt on potatoes. After the zatar, there's usually a plate of what my host mother calls Lebanese cheese. I know that isn't what the Arabic name is, but I can't really find what it is actually called. The cheese has a creamy texture and doesn't have much punch, making it go down pretty easy. After the lLebanese cheese, there's usually some حُمُص (Hummus), which despite the fact that Americans have been pronouncing it wrong the whole time, needs no real introduction. The last consistent piece of the breakfast puzzle is جبنة (jabna), which is sort of reminds me of what cottage cheese would be like if the curds were dried and put into blocks. Overall, there are other things that are added to the breakfast feast on a daily basis (a lot of laughing cow cheese, hard boiled eggs, other Arabic foods that I don't know the name of, and more), but these are the cornerstones for how I start off my day in Jordan. Now, when my host Mother does not set out a spread like this, I do end up getting cereal. The cereal they have here reminds me of the type of cereal my Grandma would put into her dreaded morning concoction of disappointment and low-sugar health. Still, no matter what it is, I'm always starting off my morning headed in the right direction.

For lunch, I'm usually on my own. My host family is only supposed to feed me lunch on the weekends, because on the weekdays I'm at school, which means it's time for me to go explore the local restaurants. There are two typical lunches for students to get in the area. The first is to go someplace and get what is called شاورما (chawarma). Chawarma is sort of like an Arabic burrito. It's a tortilla stuffed with lamb or chicken, usually some pickles, mayonnaise, and general Arabic spices. It can be found at a lot of side restaurants that look like fast food chains, but can also be found in some more upscale restaurants (usually then it's served cut up into slices with the mayonnaise and pickled veggies on the side). When not getting the infamous chawarma, a lot of students stick to the safety of a ساندويش فلافل (sandwich falafel). Falafel sandwiches come in many different forms, from being in pita-like bread, to being in a pretezelish bun, to being in a type of bread that is more familiar to Americans. Usually these have hummus in them as well, and there can be many other things added, from zatar to Lebanese cheese to things I don't recognize. The commonality between all these forms of falafel sandwiches is that they are usually cheap. Often times I can get a falafel sandwich for close to $1 US. Usually I prefer the weekends when my host family feeds me instead of me scavenging for food on my own. Yesterday, my family had a barbeque, a typical thing to do when the weather is nice in Jordan. We went to a local park where there were hordes of other families, set up everything, then my host dad pulled out a little metal box with no top, put some wood in it, and started a fire. Once there were some good coals, my host dad started cooking كباب (Kebab) and meat patties that we would stuff into some شراك (sharak) which is like a tortilla, as opposed to the normal pita like khabaz. Everything was delicious, and between enjoying the beautiful weather, and being in the presence of friends, I ate more than I normally would have, and didn't regret any bite.

Every day, I end my food journey with food from my family. A typical Jordanian family (mine included) will cook a heap of food and use the leftovers for several days. So when I come home one day and have a meal, I usually spend the next two days coming home to the same meal. These are also the meals that I tend to forget the names of. A typical dinner that I'm fed consists of rice, or something similar to rice, and chicken. Now there are a lot of different things you can do with rice and chicken, and here they do just about all of them, but often times it's hard for me to distinguish any difference by looking at them. These meals are typically flavored with lemon, which I love, and various other herbs and spices that I can't really recognize. The food is consistently flavorful and the meat is always cooked for extended periods of time, making it tender and delicious. Throughout the night, my family typically continues to snack. Usually we have these little seeds, that are similar to sunflower seeds, that are notoriously difficult to get anything out of for exchange students. Also, my family usually enjoys having some very strong tea, or Turkish coffee, to wash down the food that was eaten throughout the day. Sometimes we get some sweets at the end of the day, such as كنافه (kanafih) which is a sweet dessert consisting of cheese covered in nuts. After eating so much food, I usually end the day in a food-induced stupor and go to bed to get ready to start it all over again the next day.