The Diet of the Arabs

Arabs are skilled at cooking, and their food is rich and varied. Their dishes are characterized as sweet, fragrant and oily. Coffee and tea are indispensable daily beverages. Following their customs, Arabs forbid eating pork and do not eat ugly or unclean things such as soft-shelled turtles and crabs, nor do they eat animals that have already died. When hunting game, for example, the hunter must quickly cut the animal's throat while the blood has not yet congealed, otherwise it cannot be eaten.

In the past, the staple foods of the Arabs were corn cakes, wheat cakes and beans, with poor families eating mainly corn cakes. Since many Arab countries earned large amounts of US dollars from oil exports, governments have subsidized the prices of staple foods. The flatbread (leavened bread) and dough cakes sold in shops are cheaper than flour itself, so families usually eat flatbread or dough cakes daily, accompanied by tomato salad, onion with chili, boiled beans, sauces and the like, with meat mainly being beef and mutton.

Arabs love coffee and tea. On the streets of every city, coffee stalls abound; a cup of coffee plus a few pastries makes a cheap lunch. Prized dishes include fried pigeon, baked fish and whole roast lamb. Whole roast lamb is made by removing the head and feet of a plump, tender lamb, emptying the entrails, stuffing it with rice, raisins, almonds, olives, pine nuts and other dried fruits and seasonings, and then roasting it over a large fire. Its characteristic is being tender, fragrant and delicious. Arabs are very skilled at eating with their hands - first, they are not afraid of heat; second, they can quickly tear off a small strip of meat or a dish with their fingers and put it in the mouth, without the fingers being allowed to touch the mouth.