Flavours of Jordan
Eating in Jordan is primarily a social experience, whether conducted over a chat in Amman’s cafes or sitting in cross-legged silence in a Bedouin tent. Anyone venturing beyond the bus-station kebab stands will quickly find that Jordanian food is not a tedious affair of falafel sandwiches but deliciously varied and culturally nuanced. Jordan is also beginning to be noted for its home-grown wines.
Cuisine
On the crossroads of Arab caravans, bringing spices from India and rice from Egypt, Jordan’s hybrid cuisine has absorbed many traditions from its neighbours, particularly from Turkey and Lebanon. Jordan’s home-grown fresh fruit and vegetables are a highlight. There are two distinct cuisines in Jordan, which for argument’s sake we’ll call pan-Arab and Bedouin.
Pan-Arab
The day starts for most Jordanians with a breakfast of eggs and locally produced olives, cheese, sour cream, fuul madamas (a fava bean dish with olive oil) and, of course, bread. Arab unleavened bread, khobz, is so ubiquitous at mealtimes it is sometimes called a’aish (life). A favourite breakfast staple is bread liberally sprinkled with zaatar (a blend of spices that includes hyssop, sumac and sesame) or sesame-encrusted rings of bread, which often come with a boiled egg. Either way, Jordanians are very sensitive about bread, and it is almost a crime to throw it away or wilfully waste it.
Lunch is usually the main meal of the day, which could explain the habit of nap-taking in the afternoons. Invariably, lunch involves rice or potatoes and includes some form of seasonal vegetable, prepared as a slow-cooking stew with a meat bone or chicken. In a restaurant, or for a special occasion, makloubeh may be on the menu: a delicious dish of chicken, rice, vegetables and spices cooked together and turned ‘upside down’. This popular dish is often garnished with cardamom and sultanas, and topped with slivers of onion, meat, cauliflower and fresh herbs, such as thyme or parsley.
The evening meal is a ragged affair of competing interests – children snacking over schoolwork, mothers preparing dishes for surprise visitors and fathers sneaking out for a kebab with friends. At the weekend, Jordanians go out as a family. In cities that could mean a Thai curry, while in small towns it will be the chef’s special. In an Arab-style restaurant, the evening is whiled away over mezze – a variety of exquisite little delicacies, such as peppery rocket leaves, aromatic chopped livers, spicy aubergine dips or a dish of freshly peeled almonds.
Bedouin
Bedouin food consists of whatever is available at a particular time. Camel’s milk and goat’s cheese are staple parts of the diet, as are dried dates and 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 Bedouin speciality mensaf – consisting of lamb, rice and pine nuts, combined with yoghurt and the liquid fat from the cooked meat – was once reserved for special occasions. Now visitors can try such dishes in Wadi Rum and Wadi Musa. The dish is cooked in a zerb (ground oven), which consists of a hole in the sand and enough firewood to make glowing coals. The oven is sealed and the meat cooked for hours until succulent.
Seasonal Specialities
Spring Lamb cooked in a zerb (ground oven) will ruin your palate for mutton. Fresh, frothy camel’s milk is abundant and giant watermelons ripen in fields alongside the Desert Highway.
Summer The fruit harvest brings pomegranates, pistachios, peaches and limes. During Ramadan, fast with the locals (dawn to dusk) and see how hunger enhances the flavours of traditional evening sweetmeats.
Autumn Pluck dangling figs or grapes from the vine and sample corn drizzled with newly pressed olive oil from local groves. In the Jordan Valley bananas and mangoes ripen in subtropical warmth.
Winter Copper-coloured persimmons ripen for Christmas – a good time to try Bethany’s ‘Baptism Fish’. In winter it’s not carnage on the roads – it’s tomatoes. Crates of them fill the fields near Safi.
Eating Etiquette
Travel in Jordan for any length of time and inevitably you’ll be invited home for a meal, especially if you are travelling alone, and most especially if you are a woman. Jordanians are very accommodating of other people’s habits but you will impress your hosts if you manage a few of the following courtesies.
Eating in Someone’s House
ABring a small gift of baklava or, better still, a memento from home.
AIt’s polite to be seen to wash your hands before a meal.
AUse only the right hand for eating or accepting food. The left is reserved for ablutions.
ADon’t put food back on a communal plate: discard in a napkin.
AYour host will often pass the tastiest morsels to you; it’s polite to accept them.
AThe best part – such as the meat – is usually saved until last, so don’t take it until offered.
AIf you’re sitting on the ground, don’t stretch your legs out until after the meal.
Eating in a Restaurant
APicking your teeth after a meal is acceptable and toothpicks are often provided.
AIt’s traditional to lavish food upon a guest. If you’re full, try one more mouthful!
ALeave a little food on your plate. Traditionally, a clean plate is thought to invite famine.
AIt’s polite to accept a cup of coffee after a meal and impolite to leave before it’s served.
AAvoid eating and drinking in public during daylight hours in Ramadan. Many rural restaurants close at this time.
Quick Eats
Local ‘fast food’ is safe, tasty and available in every town, usually from stands. The most popular dishes, none of which cost more than a couple of dinars, are as follows.
Shawarma Lamb or chicken sliced with great flourish from a revolving spit, mixed with onions and tomato and packed into flatbread.
Falafel Deep-fried balls of chickpea paste with spices, served in a piece of rolled-up khobz (bread) with varying combinations of pickled vegetables, tomato, salad and yoghurt.
Farooj Chicken roasted on spits in large grills in front of the restaurant, served with bread, raw onion and pickles.
Shish tawooq Spicy minced chicken kebabs, grilled over charcoal.
Vegetarian Options
Jordan, like many countries in the region, has a strongly carnivorous bias in the national diet – at least in restaurants. At home, people enjoy their vegetables and dairy products, and often consider meat as something to be enjoyed during special occasions.
Delicious vegetable and dairy dishes can be found in many restaurants in Jordan, especially mezze, but the concept of ‘vegetarian’ is still an alien one. As such, there may well be meat stock within a soup or animal fats used to prepare pastries. The following restaurants represent some of the best in terms of the variety of vegetarian options, but not for their non-meat pedigree.
Amman Wild Jordan Center
Azraq Azraq Lodge
Dana Biosphere Reserve Feynan Ecolodge
Jerash Lebanese House
Madaba Haret Jdoudna
Cooking Your Own Dinner
It was an inauspicious start one cold day in winter: the knives were large, the onions eye-smartingly malevolent and the aubergines too big for their own good. But just as the Petra travellers were thinking this wasn’t the activity for them, they caught sight of their fellow apprentices. With a smile of collusion across basins of parsley, they placed themselves in the hands of Mr Tariq, professional Petra chef and their teacher for the evening. Within moments, he had them shaving garlic with prodigious speed and chopping industrial quantities of tomatoes without them collapsing into sauce.
Petra Kitchen in downtown Wadi Musa is a novel idea. Instead of going out for supper, you pay a little extra to cook your own mezze, soup and a main course. The local experts who teach you how to cook Jordanian food give you valuable tips throughout the evening. If you get hooked on the flavours you learn to create, the dishes on the menu card change each night so within a week you could be returning home with a whole cookbook.
The experience of cooking in the company of strangers makes you realise that cooking in Jordan, just like dining, isn’t about the locally grown vegetables or the handed-down recipes: it’s about being sociable. One novice cook at Petra Kitchen commented that if they’d tasted the same meal at a restaurant, it would have tasted good but not as good as having prepared it themselves. This is probably because of the secret ingredients – namely the travellers’ tales that spice up the flavours and the laughter that peppers each dish.
If the concept appeals, you can also put your culinary skills to the test at Beit Sitti in Amman.
Desserts
Jordanians have an incorrigibly sweet tooth, and there are pastry shops in every town dedicated to the sublime cuisine of baklava. The giant circular trays of filo pastry, trickled with honey, syrup and/or rose water and cut into lozenges, are almost works of art.
The sweetest highlight of travel in Jordan is kunafeh, a highly addictive dessert of shredded dough and cream cheese, smothered in syrup. Customers generally order desserts by weight: 250g is generally the smallest portion so have some friends (or a toothbrush) at the ready.
Drinks
Tea & Coffee
Tea and coffee are the major social lubricants in Jordan.
Tea (shai) is probably the more popular drink, taken without milk and in various degrees of sweetness: with sugar (sukkar ziyada), a little sugar (sukkar qaleel) or no sugar (bidoon sukkar). In most cafes you can ask for refreshing mint tea (shai ma n’aana). Zaatar (a blend of spices that includes hyssop, sumac and sesame) and marrameeya (sage) herbal teas are especially delicious in Dana.
Coffee (qahwa) is served strong, sweet and flavoured with cardamom, and usually contains thick sediment. You can specify a small espresso-sized cup (finjan) or large cup (kassa kabira). In traditional Bedouin areas, coffee is served in small porcelain bowls or small glasses and the host will always refill a guest’s coffee cup. A good guest will accept a minimum of three cups but not more than five; gently ‘dancing’ the cup from side to side indicates you’ve had enough.
For men, Jordan’s coffeehouses are great places to watch the world go by, write a letter, meet the locals and play a hand of cards, accompanied by the incessant clacking of domino and backgammon pieces and the gurgling of fruity nargileh (water pipes). Foreign women, with a bit of courage and modest attire, are usually tolerated. Traditional coffeehouses don’t generally serve food.
Sahlab is a delicious traditional winter drink, served hot with milk, nuts and cinnamon. Look for it at hot-drink vendors, recognisable by their silver samovars.
Alcoholic Drinks
In a predominantly Muslim country where alcohol is considered haram (forbidden) for most of the population, discreet imbibing of alcohol is acceptable for non-Muslims and the country supports a small wine industry and also a microbrewery. The latter was set up by a Christian Jordanian engineer who brought the concept of home-brewing from the US. The resulting Carakale brand (www.carakale.com/home) is a full-bodied beer much appreciated by aficionados.
Unlike the nascent brewing industry, viticulture has an ancient regional lineage. In contrast to neighbouring countries, however, Jordan’s modern tradition of wine production was only revived a generation ago – almost single-handedly by Omar Zumot. A Christian from Amman who studied winemaking at a monastery in France, Zumot’s organically produced St George wines give the lighter Mt Nebo wines a run for their money. If you’re not convinced, it’s easy to try both in top-end restaurants throughout Jordan.
In addition to beer and wine, arak (an aniseed-derived spirit) is drunk with enthusiasm by Christian Jordanians, in Amman and Madaba especially. Dilute with water to avoid the after-effects!