The Empty Quarter / Rubu’al Khali: Dreamwork of Golden Grains

It first rained on Rann of Kutch, the drought-stricken salt desert, on the day Fathima entered the village. Everyone still remembered that day and the girl who had brought rainclouds along into that Monsoon-forgotten hamlet. I recall the images I conjured up while reading The Love Across the Salt Desert by Keki N Daruwalla. No one dared to do the impossible by crossing the desert except those few who did so for “reasons of their own”. Nawab Hussain, for instance, made the journey for “the daughter of the spice seller; she who smelled of cloves and cinnamon”. Ever since reading that story I have romanticized the desert.

Here I am now in a distant relative of the Rann of Kutch: Rubu’al Khali, commonly known as the Empty Quarter, a territory shared by Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Oman, and Yemen.

        

The silence, the clarity, the mystery, the remoteness, the vastness, the serenity, the eternity and the capricious nature of a wild, other-worldly desert! Rubu’al Khali, 650,000 square kilometers of contiguous golden sand, 1000 kilometers in length and 500 kilometers in width. I had always dreamed of visiting it one day. That day finally came a few months back while I was accompanying a friend of mine on his way to a remote hospital.

I don’t really remember where and when I first heard the name Rubu’al Khali. But I do know I heard about the Empty Quarter long ago. I guess I first came across it in ‘Laurence of Arabia’.

Desert ecology has always been somewhat of a puzzle for scientists and desert inhabitants (called Bedouins) alike. Large swaths of sand stretch beyond one’s ken to the horizon. The sands are golden with a fine grain. I collected some in a bottle I found lying around to bring home just for a kind of fetishist attachment I felt after spending a mere couple of hours there. I hadn’t done anything remotely similar even during my visits to the holiest places earlier. But this time something in me tempted me to. I just yielded to rid myself of the compulsive urge to act whimsically.

The shifting sand dunes, and the curvaceous peaks forming a serpentine line following a mysterious symmetry, are all really alluring. It can win the heart of the worst Philistine. I will show you beauty in a handful of sand grains, hastening back to Earth through my fingers as smoothly as in an hourglass.

Stopping by a lonely car bay, we engaged in some stargazing. Never had I seen such a mesmerizing, starlit sky, ebullient illumination at its best. That brought me to the realization that there was much more to see in the sky than back home, on Mother Earth, than I had previously thought. The car made its way homeward in total silence, through that mesmerizing no man’s land.

Raised Guards:Your Crops Were Under Our Eyes

"Now, I may look like an eyesore to many youngsters. But not so long ago, I stood tall, keeping an eye on the crop that sustained your grandparents. My presence marked the existence of a seemingly sleepy hamlet in every valley in the vast stretch of apparently barren land. I was all alone all the time, keeping guard. Kasaba, that was the name they called the cylindrical tower made of mud, wood and rock flakes that was me.

"Kasabas were built in the same fashion as any adobe building where the people went once their guard was down.  A tubular structure that withstood the perils of the seasons, even though it was simply made of wooden logs, twigs, mud, and rock flakes. I have puzzled over how I survived the sandstorms, rainstorms and even hailstorms that were common before you all were born over here.

"People used to mount the kasaba to stay watchful of the crops they were raising. By every growing field, every tribe used to have one or two, depending on the topography. The same must have been used to scare away animals and birds that might spoil the crops."

Recently, as I was browsing through the stacks of books at Jarir bookstore,  one book really caught my eye: Back to Earth: Adobe Building in Saudi Arabia. I spent a while thumbing through it, marveling at the curious pictures in color. I looked in amazement at those pages. Quite instinctively, I even ran my fingers over the photos to feel if what was being depicted was dirt and rock pieces structurally engineered with logs of wood. The book tells how a kasaba was built back then, and the materials used. It includes a few pictures from Abha where I am currently living. Hopefully, these structures will never be razed to the ground, but live to tell their fascinating tale to future generations.

I didn't know that, did you?

Coming across something abroad we didn’t care for much back home offers us the opportunity to see it with fresh eyes. This is exactly what happened to me in the case of the frangipani. I’ve known this shrub ever since I can remember; it used to make up the living fence around the yard of my mom’s house. As children we climbed the small trees, not minding their sticky milky-white sap.

I took this picture in Jazan, a port city in the southwest of Saudi Arabia along the Red Sea. Frangipani thrives there for some reason or another, which I couldn’t quite figure out. Though indigenous to Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean, and Brazil, this deciduous plant has been transplanted successfully to many different parts of the world, and could rightly be said to now be a cosmopolitan beauty. 

It looks majestic with its succulent green leaves and dense clusters of flowers. The waxy white flowers consist of five petals each with a yellow center; they are especially fragrant at night to attract moths for pollination. The flowers don’t yield any nectar, though, and they simply trick their pollinators. The fragrance, which primarily serves a biological function, is simply enchanting to human onlookers and passersby.

          An interesting fact I recall is that the frangipani won’t suffer sunburn even in the hottest summer. I read somewhere that it can withstand up to 500 degrees Fahrenheit (200 degrees Centigrade) of external temperature.

Peter Wohlleben, in his book The Secret Network of Nature, writes as follows about deciduous trees in general: “As long as they are alive, they are absolutely immune to fire. This is something you can easily test for yourself - but please, with just a single green twig. No matter how long you hold a flame underneath it, the twig will not burn" (p.189). If in doubt, see for yourself. There is no harm in trying.

Mandi: From Pen to Plate in 11 Frames

Mandi (مندي) is a special steak and rice dish, a staple at special occasions such as Eid, parties, and wedding feasts among Arabs. Originating in Hadhramouth, Yemen, it soon made inroads into the entire Arabian peninsula, Sub-Saharan Africa, and recently the Southeast Asian countries too, mostly on account of its oil-free and exotic style of cooking. In short, the fat from suspended meat drips onto the rice being cooked underneath. The meat gets exquisitely tender, which is probably why the name "mandi" (from nada ندى meaning 'dew' or 'snowflakes') was chosen. Mutton (preferably lamb), chicken, and camel are the usual meats prepared this way. 

Let us start with a three-month-old lamb raised nibbling on tender blades of subtropical desert grass and shrubs, often roaming free on vast stretches of the mountainous landscape. At the peak of summer, these lambs even dig up the land and eat the roots of plants underneath.

A pit is dug about four feet deep, and the wall is lined with baked earthen bricks. A layer of charcoal is placed in the bottom and is heated with a pipe-like burner until the bricks get red-hot and smoldering.

The pit oven is ready. It can hold its heat for long, so the burner is removed, leaving only some charcoal at the bottom. No more charcoal is added during the entire day. The reason people in the desert invented this oven could be that it is sheltered from the wind, so the fire can't be put out by an unexpected gust of air, or a sandstorm, and the loss of heat generated by burning scarce firewood is negligible.

Lamb steaks are prepared, cut into reasonably-sized portions, and washed well. Nothing else for marination, but table salt is added before threading the meat onto skewers to be suspended from the top of the stove. (Photo credit: Sharfudheen Pazheri)

Lowering the rice pot containing a proportionate amount of water to which salt and very little spice have been added. Note that strictly no oil is added. Basmati rice is a wonderful choice, but what is mostly being used instead is a kind of big, round-grain rice. The flavorings include raisins, cinnamon, pine nuts, pepper, and the like. However, spices are not indispensable, but salt is.

It is time to cover the rice pot with of metallic net for the steak in a case falling into the boiling rice, and at the same time letting the melting fat seep into the rice adding flavor and great texture. (Photo credit: Sharafudheen Pazheri)

Here come steaks flavored with nothing but salt, on iron skewers suspended above the rice pot. It is time to let them reveal their true, unadulterated flavor without a long list of hot and spicy flavorings.As the meat gets cooked, the juices drop down into the rice pot adding aromatic flavor to the rice.

A long twisted piece of cotton clothing is placed between the huge iron lid and the pit mouth, acting as an airtight washer. A few weights are put on top to keep the lid securely closed. This locks the aromatic vapor in.

Be careful. You need a pair of experienced hands to remove the lid. The scorching steam can cause severe blistering leaving you with no appetite for anything for days. Having been kept airtight for 45 minutes, remove the lid. The cooking time depends on the tenderness of the raw meat that was used. For Jazeeri lamb steaks, it is less than an hour.

    Wow ... cooked and ready to be served. The aroma emanating from the pit oven is irresistible. To the untrained eye, the mandi may appear unappealing, but for those who have tasted it before, and for whom it had invariably been love-at-first-bite, it is a veritable feast. (Photo credit: Sharafudheen Pazheri)

This platter serves three, but it depends on the size of your group up to 6. Enjoy it hot. If you like to complement the taste with chili sauce or slices of onion, it is better not to serve these alongside the mandi as adding directly to the dish will spoil the authentic mandi taste. Arabs traditionally eat sitting down on the floor sharing a big platter, often offering each other steaks broken into bite-size pieces with their hands as a gesture of hospitality and love. And it is customary to invite everyone around to join in ... so please sit down and help yourself.

The prickliest of all prickly pears…

The name must be sounding like an oxymoron - just like “pleasant pains”. “Prickly” is less likely to make you smile, but the latter half - "pear" - does. Lined up on the edges of each green pad, topped with short-lived flowers showcasing a desert spring, is a feast for our eyes. The wild beauty of those yellowish to reddish flowers allures bees to suck nectar and pollinate, though unaware of it.  

       Call me برشوم (Burshoom) if you find me among Arabs. Some even call me التين الشوكي (Thorny fig).My name tag on a botanical farm reads Opuntia ficus-indica. On Abha streets, vendors sell peeled ripe prickly pears, ready to savor. Go for it once in season. Fans say that prickly pears are rich in antioxidants and a great deal more, leaving me with the impression that their claims are exaggerated. But one thing I know for certain: nobody cultivates prickly pears over here, yet it grows on its own in abundance all around. As such it is perfectly organic.

      If, by any chance, you are tempted to pluck a few invitingly ripe fruits growing by the wayside, your inexperienced hands will regret it in no time. No-one will stop you, nor will anyone rubberneck at you for trespassing. This lovely exotic fruit is fortified with a blanket of invisible, sharp, hair-like prickles. They readily detach themselves from the plant and attach themselves to you. You have no way of knowing this until your skin registers the sensation of being penetrated. It is more irritating than painful. It is almost impossible for humans to avoid being pierced, but camels can.

We have our own tools and techniques to bypass the undesirable part of anything we do or use. We human beings as a race have survived this long only because of that ingenuousness. Popular science books would tell us that most desert plants are thorny to help protect them from predators. 

But the Grand Designer who created the camel outsmarted these defensive designs of his own, letting it snack on cacti, too. I always wondered how camels manage to send their prickly meal down to their stomach. It was only later that I came to know that camels have a set of hardened structures called papillae that line their mouths. These help them eat even the prickliest pads of juicy cacti. If you want to know more on how it works, go ahead at your own risk. Best of luck to your exploratory mind,Click here.

Baking Up A Storm

I love to cook and bake, but prefer baking, and baking sweet things is my favorite. Not overly sweet things, though - preferably somehow fruit-related, and preferably using vegetable oil (not butter) and self-rising flour. I have adapted several recipes to meet these requirements, and have also simplified the steps involved - fusing steps to make it less finicky and time-consuming - with good effect.

Two days ago I made, in succession, apple cake, date loaf and banana loaf, and oatmeal squares, all of them in my mini-oven, using the same kitchen equipment (including the same mixing bowl) and utensils. I used to be frustrated by burnt baked goods (because the oven is so small and the heat so direct, it was VERY difficult to get baked goods not to burn, especially sugar-containing ones). Then I happened upon a "trick" in a YouTube cooking video: double-panning, and - voila - problem solved.

  It truly was one of my biggest discoveries so far this year. I've been using double-panning ever since and have never had burnt baked goods again. For the record, double-panning involves putting your baking dish inside another one of similar size, or on top of another one; I do the latter. It works perfectly, and makes all the difference.

 (Both the text and the picture were baked by Erich Beer, my South African colleague at KKU especially for  https://edibleshoots.blogspot.com/ )

Yet another refulgent day is not far...

     “Here I am up in the window, that indistinguishable head you see listing toward the sun and waiting to be watered. Through a pair of strong field glasses, you might be able to make out the color of my leaf (milky green), my flower (purple white), and the poor profile of my stunted growth. In open country with stem and root room, I could top four feet. Want a true botanical friend? Guess my species and you can take me home”.

      If you can call into mind a dying houseplant at a deserted house during the worst war ever, get into her shoe and read again the above lines. That was yet another equally wonderful beginning. First lines of a novel by Stephen Wrights, Meditations in Green. A great narrative about the Vietnam War (1955 to 1975). It was originally published in 1983. Not sure how many times I revisited these lines over years.

    And one last note on the pic: It was shot on a cold Saturday morning from Jannathul Baqueeu, famous graveyard very close to the resting place of Prophet Muhammad(SA)in the illuminated city of Madeenah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. An audacious attempt in capturing a mesmerizingly lovely moment to savor later at our leisure.

Can’t wait till the last kernel pops …

The place I call home being situated on an uphill slope, I had the privilege of getting to see things being moved by road from above. Bunches of unripe or half-ripe bananas, and burlap bags of tightly packed copra, were a few among them, getting transported on the rooftop carriers of the passenger buses from my hometown to the district central market. Unlike today's kids, we didn’t have many things to pay attention to. So we were naturally growing closer to nature, smelling its seasonal smells, feeling its changes, listening to its own ambient music, and enjoying thekaleidoscopic changes in colorful leaves and flowers. 

 The occasional call of vendors selling popcorn, cotton candy, ice cream, or milky or grape-topped ice bars really made us super-excited. We were never sure if our wish to have some would be granted, though. It all depended upon the unpredictable moods of our parents. Sometimes they were easy to persuade, but more often an emphatic “no” would be the only response.

I can still hear the popcorn vendor walking the roads, shouting at the top of his voice, "Cholaporiyei…" (Oh popcorn …).  Even the sound of him was a mouthwatering or salivating stimulus in terms of educational psychology. The Russian psychologist Ivan Petrovich Pavlova's dogs salivated as they heard the bell after a few days of being fed meat while at the same time being made to listen to the sounding of a bell. Classical conditioning worked equally well on us as we heard the bell sounds of the popcorn vendor, who was carrying a large plastic bag on his back, holding its twisted neck by both hands over his shoulder. That twisting – I’m not sure now if it was clockwise or anti-clockwise - was a kind of flavor lock for the polythene bag. But we were kids, so what did we care. We simply craved popcorn, especially during the evenings.

By the way, we did not have many options to choose from. It was all one paper cone of fine, crispy cream-colored popcorn called "chollpory". No preservatives, no artificial flavors, no additives like butter, coffee, caramel, vanilla etc. We didn’t know back then that such variants even existed elsewhere. We each finished our treat off in no time, not caring about kernels that were not yet fully popped. American cartoonist Charles M Schulz, nicknamed Sparky, may have been right when he said, “Love is sharing your popcorn” - but we hadn’t heard from him either, and it wouldn’t have made any difference if we had.

You smell of strawberry…

Because you really are one ... berry much so. Not from a punnet I dumped into my shopping trolley while strolling through the freezer aisle of the supermarket, but handpicked from a planter whose bushy growth I had watered to fruition at our doorstep. I bought her almost five years ago at the Thursday market from a farmer who was about to pack up for the day. Obviously the strawberry plant in question was among the few unsold ones, abandoned by earlier strawberry lovers after favoring her healthier sisters. She survived five Abha winters and withstood neglect during the few weeks I went mad grading papers without being able to nurse her. Almost zero care. Maybe my farm guru, Damoderettan, was correct when he said: “Lending your pair of eyes to your plants is the best fertilizer".

Interestingly, three things conspired to produce this post. First, the Hijri New Year; second, the word ‘locavore’ as a new addition to my personal vocabulary; and third, a rather compulsive inner calling to share something about a faithful plant at my doorstep unfailingly producing berries in season. In short, I am left with no choice but to bore you with yet another tale of a comestible. Sorry for presuming that we need a new year to begin anything afresh. Take it as some good-natured narrative fun.  I love strawberries for their sexy smell and bright ruby red color. I grow them, quite arguably, as part of my New Year’s resolution to be a locavore, at least strawberry-wise!

         Thank goodness strawberries do not count among my staple fruits. Not because I don’t love them, but I simply can't be a locavore every time I pine away for a strawberry. Locavores are ecologically sensitive guys trying to eat locally sourced food only, in an attempt to restrict their food mileage to a radius of 100 miles. By the way, don’t share these ramblings with anyone you know, because they are top secret. As Tsugumi Ohba, author of Death Note said, “If you keep my secret, this strawberry is yours”.

“Honey, may all your dandelion wishes come true …”

The above is an actual wish someone expressed, using the common dandelion (Taraxcum officinale) as a vehicle for their seemingly silly wish. What lies behind that wish is the perception that dandelion is an invasive weed. The vigorous sprouting of wishes in our heart has been likened to the abundant growth and carefree propagation of weeds. Unsurprisingly, the dandelion (in the above-mentioned person’s mind) fits the bill perfectly, so they effortlessly linked together dandelions and the proliferation of human wishes.

The dandelion, named after its dentate leaves that resemble the teeth of a lion, was so called by the French: “dent de lion”. It didn’t take long for the name to morph to “dandelion”.

This picture was taken on the Graiger campus of King Khalid University in Abha, Saudi Arabia, where I work for a living teaching English. The photo may leave the impression that dandelions are bee-pollinated. That is not true. The dandelion bears perfect flowers. It is bisexual or hermaphroditic, producing its seeds asexually, resulting in genetically identical parents and offspring. The wind acts as a seed distributor, taking seeds off its puffball and scattering them as far as five miles away.

            As my interest in dandelions bred curiosity, I came to realize that it should have been widely known as a lawn herb, but had the misfortune quite recently of being unfairly accorded the status of a weed. This may be because it shows up in our lawns as an unwanted guest disturbing the uniformity of our well-manicured urban “meadows”. Herbicide companies shrewdly cash in on the misperception by fertilizing that groundless assumption.  

The dandelion is said to have evolved 30 million years ago in Eurasia, and to have been brought to America on the Mayflower on purpose as an herb. It has proven medicinal value and is edible in its entirety. Dandelion tea is a good liver detox. Its root is an effective diuretic. The ancient Egyptians, Romans, and Chinese all knew how to use the plant. Arab scientists like Al-Razi described it as “the tarashaquq like chicory” and Ibn Sina dedicated a chapter to it.

Having been born into the sunflower family, the dandelion is in love with the sun, opening at sunrise and closing at sunset. It is a rich source of nectar in early spring for a host of pollinators. Thanks to its long flowering season, it is relatively easy to spot one to introduce to a friend when walking back to the car.

According to http://mydandelionisaflower.org/, “Three celestial bodies, namely, the sun, moon, and stars are said to be represented in it. The yellow flower resembles the sun, the puffball resembles the moon, and the dispersing seeds resemble the stars”. The heavens contained in a flower. How inappropriate to think of it as a weed! 

Pickling Love in the Time of Plenty

     If there is a deeper meaning behind everything we do in life, what would be behind the practice of pickling excess seasonal produce?  We love hoarding stuff. We wish we could keep things forever. We assume that the things we save today will save us tomorrow. No matter what the common experience, we tend to overlook anything to the contrary. We believe in what we love.

I don’t know what anthropologists will have to say about this, but I strongly hold the view that pickling culture has something in common with nature. Our ancestors, from the dawn of civilization, began hoarding things for a rainy day. They wanted to store things, not only for putting them to better use later, but also for keeping them from rotting. An excellent tradition. But at a deeper level, it also reflects their trust in tomorrows. In agrarian societies, seasonal plants fruit in huge quantities. Since the yield cannot be wholly consumed by the family, the fruits of their labor would go to waste in a relatively short time if not preserved one way or another.

Our grandmas had seen many days of dearth, droughts, and even shorter spans of famines before the phenomenal onset of perpetual “progress” and supply. They appreciated everything that Mother Nature had gifted them. They hurt no part of nature, wasted nothing, and preserved everything they could in the form of pickles, jam or jelly by drying, oiling, salting etc. I think the same thoughtfulness can save us from perishing. We can’t go wrong heeding the lessons from their life experiences, though they may appear less appealing to the younger generation.

The photo shows jars of “Kadumanga”, a pickle delicacy made from seasonally available tender mango, much earlier than they really mature, ideally ranging from grape-size to a little bigger than a lemon. Nothing artificial; only naturally occurring ingredients go into the making of the pickle. Wash, drain and wipe the baby mangoes dry; these should preferably be a more sour type of mango, with the bunches still intact, and the fruit broken off from the stalk and dropped right into the jars together with the sap, then layered with crystal salt. The sap, along with the salt, is the secret to successful preservation. Seal the jars, ensuring they are airtight, and shake the jars every day. After about ten days, add spices like chilly, mustard and asafetida, all well powdered, to create a titillating effect for your taste buds. Also add boiled gingelly oil once cooled off to lock in the developing flavors and extend the shelf life virtually indefinitely. A lesson in microbiology: sterilize your utensils in the sun first. This way there is no moisture for microbes to grow in.

I like to think Arundhati Roy and Salman Rushdie both had their novels “pickled” to further their chances of winning The Booker Prize.

Roy’s The God of Small Things frequently references Paradise Pickles and Preserves, a pickling company ran by Mammachi in an attempt to preserve the past.

 Midnight’s Children by Rushdie contains these lines about the “Symbolic value of the pickling process: all the six hundred million eggs which gave birth to the population of India could fit inside a single, standard-sized pickle-jar; six hundred million spermatozoa could be lifted on a single spoon. Every pickle-jar (you will forgive me if I become florid for a moment) contains, therefore, the most exalted of possibilities: the feasibility of the chutnification of history; the grand hope of the pickling of time!”.

      What makes those pickles stand apart from the rest?  The only unique selling point (USP) I can think of is this: to the secret condiments were added indispensable intangibles, feelings of love, care and affection – all the qualities that truly make a grandma a grandma.

I will knead you into a lovely full moon

    “Give me a place to stand, and a lever long enough, and I will move the world.” So said Archimedes once. I wish I could say, in the same vein: “Give me some wheat flour and a rolling pin, and I will move hearts.

        Water, salt and little else besides - just mix everything until well combined. Knead the dough into the desirable consistency, and then turn it into lovely shapes and sizes before baking these into anything you can name. Just like clay in the hands of a skilled potter, you can give your creativity free reign and shape, size, flavor up and color the dough, baking it into something beyond anyone’s wildest culinary fancy.

Our love affair with wheat is said to have started between 12,000 and 10,000 BCE. It was in the Fertile Crescent, where Mesopotamian, Assyrian, and Egyptian farmers first began cultivating wheat. Obviously, the bread we now eat took millennia to develop into what it is today. The loaves our ancestors baked were definitely harder, less refined, and coarse, but most likely also much healthier, for the ancient ones ate flour far less removed from the original, wisely preferring not to cater to the taste buds alone.

Baked in the fire of maternal love, my mom used to place before me three full moons to fuel my day’s labor. Evenly rounded paper-thin, well-raised pita bread, straight from the chapatti stone. The steam soon found a hole to escape through, and the pita bread deflated adjusting itself to the serving dish. The virtual taste of that aromatic odor in itself was rousingly appetizing. It would always remind me of the hymn lyrics that ran something like “I am the living bread that came down from heaven; anyone who eats of this bread shall live forever”.

It is a fact that man cannot live by bread alone. So my practical and pragmatic prayer for you, in the words of Nelson Mandela, is: “Let there be work, bread, water and salt for all.” However, I tend to smile in remembrance of Omar Khayyam: “A loaf of bread, a jug of wine, and thou”.