Home  The All New Blog Abu Dhabi: So much for the working time directive, but the food's great!
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Abu Dhabi: So much for the working time directive, but the food's great! |
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Written by Stephen Baines
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Monday, 23 August 2004 |
I can barely summon up the energy to type this evening. It's Monday, and I've already put in 53 hours since I set off. Today was a thirteen hour marathon of a day, and I'm starting to feel it. And it's another 3 days before I get a non-teaching day. I just hope I make it!
But it's worth it - the guys have done well, and I'm getting to try fabulous food.
It seems I'm an odd-ball and something of a talking point already. I'm the foreigner who came over and doesn't want to eat in McDonalds. I'm the foreigner who they've given Lebanese and Persian food, and enjoyed it all, and not be fazed by any of it, I've enjoyed it, noted what it is, asked where it's from, tried to find out how to make it, and got ready for the next one.
One of the major handicaps is the issue of taking Arabic names for things and trying to get a Western equivalent name. Yesterday there was an argument amongst my trainees on how to spell the drink we had at lunch. Was it Kawa or was it gowa? Or was it - as the books at home suggest - Qahwah? The best advice I've read about this is that the definitive guide to the Arab Revolt in WWI has these words spelt inconsistently throughout. When asked why the author - TE Lawrence - said that, quite simply "Arabic names won't go into English. There are some scientific systems of transliteration, helpful to people who know enough Arabic to not need helping. I spell my names anyhow, to show what rot the systems are". Fair point, say I.
So I have a list of dishes I've tried and enjoyed. I've come across none so far I don't, and today I went with my host to a Lebanese fast food joint, and sat as the only Westerner there, surrounded by Arabs. The menu was in Arabic, I was at Manars mercy. The food was unlike any fast food in the west, it was fantastic - well cooked, tasty and you could tell what meat it was. It cost less than 60 Dirhams (£10) for 2 people, including a fantastic fruit drink that was more a fruit puree. I could go on about the discussion at lunch about the merits of Persian mangoes over Egyptian ones, and how it's not the same now the season is over, but all I can say is that even the Egyptian mangoes were better than the stuff we get in the UK, so I'm sorry I haven't had chance to try the even better ones.
We have a lot to learn from them. Or is it re-learn?
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