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March 5 2005
Lebanese Writers Offer Alternate Views of Beirut
by Jacki Lyden
Weekend Edition - Saturday, March 5, 2005 · Demonstrators have
filled the streets of Beirut in recent days, protesting Syria-backed
Lebanese President Emile Lahoud and demanding the withdrawal of
Syrian soldiers.
Among these protesters are some of the contributors to an anthology
that was published last year, Transit: Beirut: New Writing and
Images.
With its eclectic mix of fiction, experimental memoir and photography
from both new and established writers, the book provides glimpses of
the rich and complex life of the city not often seen by outsiders.
Malu Halasa, who edited the book with Roseann Saad Khalaf, speaks
with Jacki Lyden about the genesis of the collection, the recent
protests and the relationship between art and politics.
Read an excerpt from the book:
"My Lebanese Sandwich"
By Maher Kassar and Ziad Halwani
I'm in Moscow airport, waiting for the weekly flight back to Beirut.
People know each other on this flight. There are the same familiar
faces: businessmen, escort girls and pimps. While I'm having a snack
before boarding - and happily saying good-bye to what seems to be
staple Russian airport food: rye bread, mayonnaise and kalbasa
sausage - I hear a voice in Arabic asking me: 'Did you have fun in
Russia?' Moussa is from Jounieh. He is one of the few tourists a
travel agency sold an 'all in' package deal to Russia, including
food, hotel in Moscow, and guaranteed female entertainment. He seems
totally disoriented and out of place. He asks for my help and follows
me from the restaurant all the way through the long formalities of
the Sheremetyevo airport. He tells me his holiday was a nightmare.
Nothing was as promised. The three-star hotel had no hot water, and
everything is so expensive in Moscow. And the food, my god the
FOOD!!! The girls were all right but they were not allowed in the
hotel after midnight. The third day, he fled to Minsk to some
friend's place. There, he went to the local market, bought meat and
vegetables, and cooked his own food. This at least allowed him to
survive the rest of the trip. 'All this time,' he says, 'I was
dreaming of a falafel sandwich.' Moussa went to Russia with a hunger
for young, beautiful blondes; he came back with an even bigger hunger
for falafel.
As he said goodbye and cheerfully thanked me, I felt a growing
uneasiness. Something was not right about his story. Usually when you
leave for a long period and miss the taste of the food of your
country, you are - so to speak - home food-sick not fast food-sick.
Why would he choose to miss the taste of falafel when he could pick
from a plethora of succulent, typical Lebanese home cooked dishes?
Vine-leaf rolls stuffed with rice and minced meat, and cooked with
lamb's-tongue. Mloukhieh, a delicate green broth mixed with rice,
chicken, lamb, toasted bread, lemon sauce and vinegar sauce. (This is
my favourite because it is a 'living' dish; you keep adding each of
the ingredients, slightly changing the taste every time, keeping your
plate full and alive for as long as you wish.) Or Samakhe harra, an
oven-baked white fish with rich and spicy sesame oil sauce topped
with grilled almonds and pine nuts. And these are the obvious ones.
Did this man have no taste? He seemed to be one of us though; I mean
the kind who cares a lot about food.
This encounter made me reflect on the particular affection the
Lebanese have for their fast food. I started remembering all those
happy faces biting into shawarma, satisfied and content. I remembered
the expectation in their glittering eyes as the sandwich man adds the
salad, the onion, the taratór and the pickles before finally wrapping
the sandwich and solemnly handing it to them: 'One shishtaouk, one!'
But, what makes it so special? Why does it have such a strong hold on
the Lebanese heart - something to miss when you're abroad. After all,
it is only fast food. And one wonders: do we experience the same
pleasure when biting into a Big Mac?
Big, Fat and Ugly ... It's Fast Food All Right!
First things first. Let's identify our subject of interest: shawarma,
falafel, shishtaouk, Armenian soujouk and bastirma, and bakery
products such as manouché lahmbajin, ftaye and kaak.
The Lebanese Mother
In Lebanon it is no easy job to leave the family home and even more
difficult to leave your mother's cooking. Chances are you will be
eating at the same table and at the same assigned place, the same
fifteen to twenty traditional recipes - however wonderfully executed
- for a good part of your life. The road to independence out of the
household is long and full of ambushes.
It is not conceivable, for example, that you leave without being
married. Your first mission is to find a proper bride from a
respectable family. It is also highly recommended that she should be
from the same religion since only religious marriages are recognized
in our country. However, if you are a free spirit looking for further
complications and unwilling to give up on the beautiful candidates
that the other seventeen communities have to offer, you will have to
plan (and pay for) a civil marriage abroad, usually in Cyprus. I
could dig deep into the other solution that requires you or her to
convert to the other belief. However, by the time both the religious
authorities and the families are won over, and all the 'details' are
settled, you will both be eager to divorce.
Now let's say you have found someone. You will only be considered a
proper party for marriage if you have the housing issue settled. Yes,
you'd better own a house. Don't think you're going to take our
daughter and live on the streets... Of course, you can rent or buy a
small apartment, but if you're a good man and you're as serious as
you pretend to be, it is recommended that you build a house from
scratch. You'd better find an architect, a contractor, bricks,
concrete, land, and the cash. No wonder there's so little free space
in Lebanon. Imagine if every male soul with a crush on someone finds
a piece of land and starts laying bricks.
Many of my friends have tried to escape the whole process; and
although most of them were definitely James Dean material, they were
quite unsuccessful. You could try to go on your own, try to cut the
umbilical cord prematurely, be a rebel and do the crazy thing. You
might be broke for a while, fight to pay your rent and lead a frugal
existence. But don't worry, you will never be hungry. Mama will
always be there for you. She will visit every week with stacks and
stacks of Tupperware with enough home cooked food to feed you and all
your friends until the day you decide to be a reasonable young boy
again and come back home where you belong; whenever that day might
be. Of course, you can try to hide and not disclose your new address.
But Lebanon is a small country. She will find you.
If you follow all this advice, you have a chance to break free one
day. You will decide where you prefer to sit at the table, what food
you would like to eat, and who knows, you might even want to have a
shot at cooking yourself. But nothing is guaranteed. If your parents
have a little money, there's a good chance they have started the
construction of an upper floor for you and your future family. You
can already see the unfinished, armed concrete pillars with the metal
rods still sticking out. When more money comes in, they will raise
the walls. When it's finished, you can finally get married, my son,
and move upstairs.
Then, there will be two rival kitchens competing just to feed you.
Your wife will get hell from your mother. First, she will pretend to
teach her how to cook. She will give her the recipes just the way
you've always liked them. Only for some reason, they will never turn
out nearly as good. Too much salt, overcooked, not enough cinnamon.
'Oh, you didn't add lemon, garlic and dried mint on the top? It's
true ... I forgot to tell you.' Over the years, missing elements of the
recipes will be sparingly disclosed. The proportions will eventually
correct themselves. But there will always be something missing.
Finally, when she has made sure who was the best cook, and is now too
tired for the kitchen duties, your mother will call for your wife:
'Listen! I am going to tell you what is wrong with your coussa
mehshe. It is ...' The rest nobody else will hear. The secret has been
passed on and she, your mother, has made sure that you will be fed
the same food. FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE.
The Freedom Sandwich
You're fourteen, coming out of school with your friends. Something is
going to happen. A fact of life. It's your first time. You finally
find the courage to go across the street and ask: 'Can I have a
manouché, please. With tomatoes, olives and a little mint,' you even
manage to utter. You hand over your pocket money and timidly take
possession of the little thyme pizza.
Yes, congratulations! It is your first meal alone and away from home.
And YOU paid for it. Never will you forget the soft and oily dough of
the manouché in which you sank your teeth for the first time, the
tingling, sour taste of the thyme, and the sesame seeds stuck between
your teeth. For you, it will always be the taste of freedom and
independence, your little secret culinary hideaway from home.
Worker's Size
Men at work like to have lunch together. They order sandwiches and
start chatting about whatever men like to talk about: business,
politics, women, cars ... food of course. I believe it is the same
everywhere in the world. But in Lebanon, lunch with colleagues is an
occasion for very specific male behaviour. At one point, the chatting
stops and the munching begins; a collection of impressive jaws
bearing down on the defenceless pita sandwich. Two manly bites and
the sandwich is gone, and off we go to the next. It is a silent but
fierce competition where all the contenders are required to show
their teeth. The bigger the bite, well... I'll let you imagine what's
at stake.
In the mid-1990s, in order to answer this growing phenomenon, fast
food joints decided to launch a new product: the Worker's Sandwich.
It is really not different from a traditional sandwich, except it's
three times bigger. You could get a Worker's falafel, shawarma,
makanik, or anything you decided to wrap in an oversized pita bread.
It really made all those men happy. Armed with their sixteen-inch
sandwiches, they could finally parade their manhood.
How much of a man are you, anyway? Go to Abu Ahmad. He will tell you.
When you enter the small restaurant and order your sandwich, he will
look at you from the top to the bottom and will make his judgement:
'Two women's falafel, two!'
Barbar: A Success Story
Sandwiches that give you your independence, sandwiches that make you
feel like a real man. These are marketing concepts that a Lebanese
fast food owner needs to understand in order to make his business
work. But those who make it really big in the extremely competitive
world of Lebanese fast food need to have something more, a little
spark of genius to stand out from the others; innovation combined
with a talent to understand and satisfy the people.
In 1982, Barbar opened in the midst of the civil war. It was a small
bakery in the popular area of Hamra, at first solely dedicated to
manouché: manouché zaatar, minced meat manouché, manouché kichk (a
sour dried milk powder) and the traditional manouché with runny
bulgary cheese, except that it was surprisingly topped with sesame
seeds. This small innovation was the launch pad for the small bakery
of Mohammad Ghaziri also known as Barbar.
'Did you try Barbar's sesame and cheese manouché?' People started to
talk about it and the word of mouth spread like a trail of gunpowder.
The fact that it stayed open through the most dramatic days of the
war also contributed greatly to Barbar's popularity. 'Twenty-four
hours I'm telling you! They never close.' People recall that it only
closed once in honour of two of its employees who were killed in a
bombing. Another legend of the Lebanese civil war was born, and the
manouché bakery took off.
Galvanized by these early successes, Barbar started a wild,
ill-defined door to door expansion, moving in and occupying every
little neighbouring shop whose owner was prepared to surrender.
In a year, the shawarma snack bar and the small falafel shack opened.
Later, following the trend started by the notorious 'King of
Vitamin', Barbar opened a fruit cocktail and ice cream shop offering
exotic juices such as the Mandela, a chocolate milk shake with banana
slices, the Noriega and Castro cocktails, or even the Hitler, a
blood-red strawberry cocktail garnished with almonds and pine nuts,
topped with whiter than white whipped cream. Finally, a restaurant
with seating space, a submarine sandwich joint and a butcher's shop
completed the Barbar food armada. Soon the little passageway in Hamra
became known as Barbar Street and, between the cocktail shop and the
sub sandwich restaurant, the street is now blocked by the sign: 'Road
Open to Barbar Clients Only'.
Although they are only a few meters apart, every Barbar restaurant
has its own kitchen, its own accountancy department and its own
employees; a real structural disadvantage due both to the lack of
planning and the resolve of remaining shop owners determined to
resist Barbar's expansionist plans. The owner of a two-meter wide
clock shop, for example, only surrendered half of his small space to
Barbar, keeping the other half for himself. One meter of silver watch
display still separates the falafel shop and the shawarma snack bar.
But this is also part of Barbar's charm with its strange, original
architecture and its waiters running around the street from one
restaurant to the other, shopping for the cocktail, the falafel plate
and the baked entrees you've ordered while comfortably seated in the
restaurant.
Now let's do what everybody has been itching to do. Let's look at the
menu. More than 200 items! The Francisco Sub with chicken, corn,
mayonnaise and soya sauce was introduced in a period when Beiruti
palates began appreciating Asian food. The Soiree is another
creation. Initially intended to imitate the petit four, it is really
like a mini pirojki with Lebanese fillings such as minced shishtaouk
instead of the traditional Russian cabbage or potato. 'Mr Ghaziri
travels a lot and brings us all kinds of new food ideas from abroad,'
says a Barbar manager when asked about their innovation policy.
Barbar is innovative, but in the vein of some of the politicians
after whom Ghaziri has named his cocktails, he is most of all a true
populist, taking any food idea and trend that his clients are
susceptible to and adapting it to Lebanese tastes. Why go anywhere
else? You can find anything and everything at Barbar's: take-away
pizza, hamburgers, subs, chicken fried 'Kentucky style', fajita
sandwich, Chinese chicken, donuts even. You name it, Barbar has it.
But everything has been transformed a little bit. The sandwiches and
hamburgers have a little more garlic than usual, the pizzas come
garnished with soujouk or makanik sausage, and it is probably the
only place in the world where you can order a 'lamb's-brain sub
sandwich all dressed'! Even certain names, like the French 'croisson'
in the Barbar's breakfast menu, have been adapted to suit the
Lebanese.
But Barbar had bigger dreams and ambitions. He learned from his
structural problems and made a plan. In 2001, the new Barbar Spears
Street was inaugurated. One long, single space for the falafel, the
bakery, the shawarma, the sub and the take-away restaurants; and a
back-door alley for the employees to move freely from one space to
the other. At the same time, new competition from foreign fast foods
forced him to raise his standards. As the Barbar manager explains,
'We have now very strict policies on nail cutting, hand washing and
hair hygiene... what's the word... Transparency, yes... we like our clients
to see everything.'
And indeed we see everything that is happening behind the counter;
but most of all, we are blinded by the food galore exposed in front
of us. From left to right: pickles, lettuce, taratór, shishtaouk,
fajita chicken, fried fish, fish filet, fried calamari, shrimps,
surimi, French fries, spicy potatoes, shawarma meat, shawarma
chicken, makanek, soujouk, bastirma, lamb's-feet, lamb's-brain... Along
the high density traffic of Spears Street, a fifty-meter long display
of colourful, cold, hot, spicy, exotic, meats, salads, fried and
baked foods that you are welcome to arrange at will in a sub or pita
sandwich.
It's as if the sailboat of Barbar's dreams suddenly materialised in
front of us. With its high ceiling, giant posters, and blue and pink
neon lights visible from far away, Barbar Spears is the Taj Mahal of
fast food, the ultimate Lebanese street feeding machine; a model that
Barbar is now exporting abroad to the Gulf and other Arab countries.
The King of Kaak
I never feel as lost, confused and panicked as on Saturday mornings
after a night of partying when I open the fridge and realise there is
nothing to eat. Hunger grabs me and the urge to fill the empty
stomach drives me crazy. I start opening all the drawers and
cupboards in the kitchen: a jar of pickles, mustard, Tabasco ... that
won't do. I search every corner of the house with frenzy and a
growing feeling of desperation. Defeated, I sit on my bed and face
reality. I have to dress and go outside the house to buy breakfast.
As I drag myself out on to the street and the summer sunrays start
warming my body, I feel hopeful again. I know that soon I will come
across a kaak vendor pedalling in the opposite direction. 'Kaak!
Kaak!' the young man shouts. On a wooden frame on the back of his old
bicycle, the sesame topped, crescent-shaped galettes are hung in
several rows. As he lifts the plastic sheets protecting the kaak, I
try to decide on the filling: Zaatar or picon? I choose picon, the
'Famous French cream cheese' found only in Lebanon. 'Thank god for
the kaak street vendors!' That's all I can think as I bite into the
crispy golden kaak envelope stuffed with the soft cheese.
For as long as I can remember, there have been kaak vendors in
Beirut. Hundreds of street carts and bicycles patrolling the streets
of the city in search of ravenous souls like mine. They are a gift,
or better, a public service; always there when you need them. For 750
LL or fifty cents, you can fill your stomach and satisfy cruel
hunger.
'Where do all these kaaks come from anyway?' Without hesitation, the
seller answers, 'Abu Ali.' When I ask him where I can find this man,
he tells me to go further up the line of vendors and ask again,
saying, 'They will surely know.' Slowly, I work my way up from
Gemmayze to Basta; and with every kaak vendor that I meet, I am
greeted with the same answer: 'Abu Ali? Of course! Go further up and
ask. Everybody knows Abu Ali.'
In the narrow streets of Basta, I follow the trails that lead to the
bakery of Abu Ali. Vendors with empty carts accompany me through the
traffic. From the opposite direction, those loaded with the fresh
kaak start singing the calls that they have repeated relentlessly for
years: 'Kaak for the morning, kaak for the evening.' 'Kaak, kaak, buy
my kaak.' The cycle of nasal, high-pitched voices is a lullaby that
seems to carry the strong smells of freshly baked galette and toasted
sesame.
Further up in the street, as the concentration of people, voices and
smells becomes thicker, workers are unloading enormous bags of flour
from a big truck. I realize that I have arrived. The place is small
and humble. No door, no windows, just a few steps separate the street
from the single space oven. As I start my way up, a young man
instantly blocks the entrance and asks me: 'Yes? What do you want?'
'I... I'm a reporter doing an article on kaak. I would like to meet Abu
Ali.' As he lets me in, I feel privileged.
I have no difficulty recognizing Abu Ali. He is an old man and his
authority over the young workers, and everybody else around, is
unmistakable. The place is busy and he controls the operations. 'Go
wash your hands,' he orders one of his employees. 'What are you
doing? Not here! Get a brain!' he blasts the exhausted hauler whose
body is nearly collapsing under a bag of flour three times his
weight. Even to his sole clients, the kaak vendors, he is
unremittingly tough, never stepping down from the heights of his
bakery and never letting them up the stairs.
With me, however, he is extremely charming. He smiles and tells me
everything I want to know: he's been working in the business since
1957. Before that his father and grandfather owned a kaak bakery in
the old downtown. His sons, however, will not succeed him. 'They are
all doctors, engineers or something like that.' He says it so sadly
that he makes me feel like taking over myself.
He tells me about the dark days of kaak, during the 1990s when people
used to associate kaak vendors with Syrian intelligence. In reaction
he decided to paint the red and white Lebanese colours and the
national Cedar tree on the walls of the bakery. Many kaak vendors
also pin Lebanese flags on their carts to show their patriotism. He
tells me about his business and projects. He produces up to 6,000
kaaks a day and has just signed a contract to deliver mini-kaaks to
Middle East Airlines for their early breakfast flight.
When the interview is over, he carefully chooses a piece of kaak from
the racks near the oven. With his thumb, he makes a hole in it and
fills it with his personal thyme mix (zaatar) which he keeps hidden
under a table. 'This one's for you,' he says. Slowly, he lights a
Cuban cigar and waves to me to come and sit outside next to him. 'I
love cigars but I never smoke after 2.00 PM. At my age, I have to be
careful!'
Sitting on his plastic chair outside the bakery, cash in one hand and
cigar in the other, Abu Ali lords it over the street and all the kaak
vendors. He has succeeded, in authentic Lebanese style.
The Rise and Fall of the Mac
I will never forget the surreal scenery of Ain El Mraisse during
Ramadan. It is 4.30 in the November afternoon and the sun is setting
in beautiful colours that seem to say: we're not in Europe, we're not
in Asia, we're in the middle. The place, usually overcrowded with
pedestrians, is totally deserted. People have answered the call of
the muezzin announcing the end of the fast. In this still and
ethereal atmosphere, the voice seems to envelope everything around
it: the palm trees standing at the beginning of the Corniche, the
mosque on the other side of the street and in between, sticking out
with its bright red and yellow colours, the two-storey McDonald's
restaurant.
During the war, people dreamt of having a McDonald's in Beirut. They
considered that it would be a sign that civilization had finally
reached us. The notorious 'M' sign was copied and used by several
fast food establishments. 'M' stood for Massis, the renowned Armenian
fast food restaurant with its exquisite soujouk sandwiches and famous
'Odour-free-Bastirma'. We even had our own 'McDonald's' though its
mascot was not Ronald, the ever-smiling clown, but Donald the Duck.
It was as close to civilization as we could get.
Civilization... We asked for it and we got it big time. Along with the
new roads, the new infrastructure, the new international airport, a
brand new downtown, cellular phone networks, satellite TV, superstar
European DJs and modern beach resorts, the thirteen-year long effort
to reconstruct Lebanon after the war lead to the opening of 9
McDonald's, 8 Burger Kings, 4 KFCs, 11 Starbucks, 6 Dunkin Donuts, 1
TGI Fridays and 8 Pizza Huts. And for a little while, everybody was
happy. While buying our children a happy meal, we had the impression
that 'Lebanon (was) moving toward better days' - as McDonald's
Lebanese franchise owner Jean Zoghzoghi puts it; and of course the
international fast food chain executives were happy to find another
four million healthy bellies willing to be filled.
But this golden period was not meant to last. Like a new toy, the
Lebanese played with the Whopper, tried the McFlurry and collected
all the party favours from TGI Fridays. Today, the hype is gone and
the spirit of our good old falafel and shawarma is back.
A friend once told me that what she loved about McDonald's is that
wherever you go in the world, you can be assured of getting the same
quality and the same taste. In other words: everybody is equal in
savours and flavours. This is the strength of the Big Mac. And this
is precisely why it will fail here in Lebanon. Listen carefully
Ronald McDonald: we do not want to be standard. We want to be an
exception. We do not want to be treated like everybody else. We want
to be special. When we order a sandwich, we ask the chef to prepare
it 'Alla Zawaak' (to his own taste). I want him to look at me, guess
how much taratór, how much onion and tomato would suit my palate. I
want a sandwich tailor-made for me. 'This falafel sandwich, Mr
Kassar, is just for you. Nobody else in the world has eaten one like
this, I can assure you.'
And then there's the politics. At the beginning of the second
Intifada in September 2000, a campaign was launched in Lebanon and
other Arab countries to boycott US goods. 'The penny you spend buying
these products amounts to another bullet for the body of our brave
Palestinian brother,' the leaflet said in reference to the three
billion dollars a year of direct US aid to Israel. In April 2002,
after the six-week Israeli offensive in the West Bank and the forced
confinement of Arafat in his Ramallah headquarters, the fast food
boycott took on another dimension. Students in Beirut organized
sit-ins in Burger King, Starbucks and McDonald's. Tragically, bombs
were planted at Pizza Hut, KFC and McDonald's resulting in the injury
of a teenage girl and significant property damage.
McArabia
But global companies don't go down without a fight. To regain public
sympathy, targeted marketing campaigns were launched. Coca-Cola began
planting Cedar trees in the southern Lebanese town of Jezzine and has
recently sponsored the Palestinian national soccer team. On the
culinary front, Burger King and McDonald's decided to market new
sandwiches. Last year, the Kafta King and the McKafta were the stars
of the summer. More recently, the streets of Beirut were covered with
giant posters of the brand new McArabia.
I have taken it upon myself to try the McArabia for you. I have
allowed my bag to be searched at the door of McDonald's and undergone
the shame of having to loudly pronounce the words: 'One McArabia,
please.' Would a Swedish person accept asking for a 'McScandinavia'
or worse, a Frenchman order a 'McFrance'? But what the hell, I'm an
Arabian after all, so I pronounced the magic words and I received, in
reward, my sandwich.
On the back of the closed cardboard box, a small cartoon demonstrated
the correct procedure for opening the package and the most convenient
way to hold the sandwich. I am now in the 'Ready-to-Eat' position and
I can finally bite two slices of chicken burger wrapped in a
Mc-version of pita bread with shredded lettuce and tomato, topped
with a light mayonnaise-like sauce.
My verdict is immediate: bland, gummy... culturally neutral chicken.
Culturally neutral! I feel like I've just bitten into one of those
yellow Afghan aid packages specially designed not to hurt the
Afghani's religious feelings. They also had a cartoon explaining how
to eat the food, as well as an American flag, to make sure that there
was no misunderstanding the identity of the benefactor.
But there was a more serious flaw. There is no garlic in the Arabian
sandwich! It only struck me later when I realized that I had none of
the garlic-related inconveniences, which I usually experience after
eating a Lebanese sandwich. We put garlic sauce everywhere, and two
layers rather than one. It's called, 'Garlic extra!'
In the Beirut sandwich hall of fame, the chicken garlic and pickles
panini from Marrouche is first with no contest. A friend of mine who
used to live off it when she was a student and has now become a
vegetarian - another one lost to the cause - could not completely
abandon the intrinsic taste of the Marrouche sandwich. She now orders
a 'chicken sandwich, garlic extra, without chicken... thank you!'
But I have no illusions. I know that garlic is a forbidden ingredient
at McDonald's. Bad breath is not part of their image. They cannot
afford the bad publicity of someone kissing his girlfriend and her
saying, 'You! You have just eaten a McArabia.' KFC is more
accommodating. They understand our attachment to garlic, especially
with chicken. If you ask for it discretely, they will hand you one or
two cups of garlic sauce under the counter. But, shhhh, don't tell a
soul!
Angry Stomachs, Angry Arabs
It's not because Palestinian territories have been reoccupied, or
that Arafat is confined in his Ramallah headquarters -- miles away
from the nearest falafel shop -- that Burger King and McDonald's are
falling out of fashion in Lebanon. Let's, for once, not put the blame
on the Israelis or the Palestinians. Let's be honest with ourselves.
It is our stomachs. They are unsatisfied, and they are the culprits.
Not enough taste not enough garlic is the reason why we boycott,
organize sit-ins and throw stones. If the surest way to an Arab's
heart is his stomach then don't mess with it. War has been declared
on the culinary front and the guard at McDonald's is not searching
your bag for dynamite, a gun or a knife. He is looking for the
illicit garlic sauce, our own home-made chemical weapon. So, please,
for the sake of peace, start making better tasting sandwiches!
"My Lebanese Sandwich," by Maher Kassar and Ziad Halwani courtesy of
Transit Beirut: New Writing + Images, edited by Malu Halasa and
Roseanne Khalaf, (Saqi Books, 2004)
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?s toryId=4523229
March 5 2005
Lebanese Writers Offer Alternate Views of Beirut
by Jacki Lyden
Weekend Edition - Saturday, March 5, 2005 · Demonstrators have
filled the streets of Beirut in recent days, protesting Syria-backed
Lebanese President Emile Lahoud and demanding the withdrawal of
Syrian soldiers.
Among these protesters are some of the contributors to an anthology
that was published last year, Transit: Beirut: New Writing and
Images.
With its eclectic mix of fiction, experimental memoir and photography
from both new and established writers, the book provides glimpses of
the rich and complex life of the city not often seen by outsiders.
Malu Halasa, who edited the book with Roseann Saad Khalaf, speaks
with Jacki Lyden about the genesis of the collection, the recent
protests and the relationship between art and politics.
Read an excerpt from the book:
"My Lebanese Sandwich"
By Maher Kassar and Ziad Halwani
I'm in Moscow airport, waiting for the weekly flight back to Beirut.
People know each other on this flight. There are the same familiar
faces: businessmen, escort girls and pimps. While I'm having a snack
before boarding - and happily saying good-bye to what seems to be
staple Russian airport food: rye bread, mayonnaise and kalbasa
sausage - I hear a voice in Arabic asking me: 'Did you have fun in
Russia?' Moussa is from Jounieh. He is one of the few tourists a
travel agency sold an 'all in' package deal to Russia, including
food, hotel in Moscow, and guaranteed female entertainment. He seems
totally disoriented and out of place. He asks for my help and follows
me from the restaurant all the way through the long formalities of
the Sheremetyevo airport. He tells me his holiday was a nightmare.
Nothing was as promised. The three-star hotel had no hot water, and
everything is so expensive in Moscow. And the food, my god the
FOOD!!! The girls were all right but they were not allowed in the
hotel after midnight. The third day, he fled to Minsk to some
friend's place. There, he went to the local market, bought meat and
vegetables, and cooked his own food. This at least allowed him to
survive the rest of the trip. 'All this time,' he says, 'I was
dreaming of a falafel sandwich.' Moussa went to Russia with a hunger
for young, beautiful blondes; he came back with an even bigger hunger
for falafel.
As he said goodbye and cheerfully thanked me, I felt a growing
uneasiness. Something was not right about his story. Usually when you
leave for a long period and miss the taste of the food of your
country, you are - so to speak - home food-sick not fast food-sick.
Why would he choose to miss the taste of falafel when he could pick
from a plethora of succulent, typical Lebanese home cooked dishes?
Vine-leaf rolls stuffed with rice and minced meat, and cooked with
lamb's-tongue. Mloukhieh, a delicate green broth mixed with rice,
chicken, lamb, toasted bread, lemon sauce and vinegar sauce. (This is
my favourite because it is a 'living' dish; you keep adding each of
the ingredients, slightly changing the taste every time, keeping your
plate full and alive for as long as you wish.) Or Samakhe harra, an
oven-baked white fish with rich and spicy sesame oil sauce topped
with grilled almonds and pine nuts. And these are the obvious ones.
Did this man have no taste? He seemed to be one of us though; I mean
the kind who cares a lot about food.
This encounter made me reflect on the particular affection the
Lebanese have for their fast food. I started remembering all those
happy faces biting into shawarma, satisfied and content. I remembered
the expectation in their glittering eyes as the sandwich man adds the
salad, the onion, the taratór and the pickles before finally wrapping
the sandwich and solemnly handing it to them: 'One shishtaouk, one!'
But, what makes it so special? Why does it have such a strong hold on
the Lebanese heart - something to miss when you're abroad. After all,
it is only fast food. And one wonders: do we experience the same
pleasure when biting into a Big Mac?
Big, Fat and Ugly ... It's Fast Food All Right!
First things first. Let's identify our subject of interest: shawarma,
falafel, shishtaouk, Armenian soujouk and bastirma, and bakery
products such as manouché lahmbajin, ftaye and kaak.
The Lebanese Mother
In Lebanon it is no easy job to leave the family home and even more
difficult to leave your mother's cooking. Chances are you will be
eating at the same table and at the same assigned place, the same
fifteen to twenty traditional recipes - however wonderfully executed
- for a good part of your life. The road to independence out of the
household is long and full of ambushes.
It is not conceivable, for example, that you leave without being
married. Your first mission is to find a proper bride from a
respectable family. It is also highly recommended that she should be
from the same religion since only religious marriages are recognized
in our country. However, if you are a free spirit looking for further
complications and unwilling to give up on the beautiful candidates
that the other seventeen communities have to offer, you will have to
plan (and pay for) a civil marriage abroad, usually in Cyprus. I
could dig deep into the other solution that requires you or her to
convert to the other belief. However, by the time both the religious
authorities and the families are won over, and all the 'details' are
settled, you will both be eager to divorce.
Now let's say you have found someone. You will only be considered a
proper party for marriage if you have the housing issue settled. Yes,
you'd better own a house. Don't think you're going to take our
daughter and live on the streets... Of course, you can rent or buy a
small apartment, but if you're a good man and you're as serious as
you pretend to be, it is recommended that you build a house from
scratch. You'd better find an architect, a contractor, bricks,
concrete, land, and the cash. No wonder there's so little free space
in Lebanon. Imagine if every male soul with a crush on someone finds
a piece of land and starts laying bricks.
Many of my friends have tried to escape the whole process; and
although most of them were definitely James Dean material, they were
quite unsuccessful. You could try to go on your own, try to cut the
umbilical cord prematurely, be a rebel and do the crazy thing. You
might be broke for a while, fight to pay your rent and lead a frugal
existence. But don't worry, you will never be hungry. Mama will
always be there for you. She will visit every week with stacks and
stacks of Tupperware with enough home cooked food to feed you and all
your friends until the day you decide to be a reasonable young boy
again and come back home where you belong; whenever that day might
be. Of course, you can try to hide and not disclose your new address.
But Lebanon is a small country. She will find you.
If you follow all this advice, you have a chance to break free one
day. You will decide where you prefer to sit at the table, what food
you would like to eat, and who knows, you might even want to have a
shot at cooking yourself. But nothing is guaranteed. If your parents
have a little money, there's a good chance they have started the
construction of an upper floor for you and your future family. You
can already see the unfinished, armed concrete pillars with the metal
rods still sticking out. When more money comes in, they will raise
the walls. When it's finished, you can finally get married, my son,
and move upstairs.
Then, there will be two rival kitchens competing just to feed you.
Your wife will get hell from your mother. First, she will pretend to
teach her how to cook. She will give her the recipes just the way
you've always liked them. Only for some reason, they will never turn
out nearly as good. Too much salt, overcooked, not enough cinnamon.
'Oh, you didn't add lemon, garlic and dried mint on the top? It's
true ... I forgot to tell you.' Over the years, missing elements of the
recipes will be sparingly disclosed. The proportions will eventually
correct themselves. But there will always be something missing.
Finally, when she has made sure who was the best cook, and is now too
tired for the kitchen duties, your mother will call for your wife:
'Listen! I am going to tell you what is wrong with your coussa
mehshe. It is ...' The rest nobody else will hear. The secret has been
passed on and she, your mother, has made sure that you will be fed
the same food. FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE.
The Freedom Sandwich
You're fourteen, coming out of school with your friends. Something is
going to happen. A fact of life. It's your first time. You finally
find the courage to go across the street and ask: 'Can I have a
manouché, please. With tomatoes, olives and a little mint,' you even
manage to utter. You hand over your pocket money and timidly take
possession of the little thyme pizza.
Yes, congratulations! It is your first meal alone and away from home.
And YOU paid for it. Never will you forget the soft and oily dough of
the manouché in which you sank your teeth for the first time, the
tingling, sour taste of the thyme, and the sesame seeds stuck between
your teeth. For you, it will always be the taste of freedom and
independence, your little secret culinary hideaway from home.
Worker's Size
Men at work like to have lunch together. They order sandwiches and
start chatting about whatever men like to talk about: business,
politics, women, cars ... food of course. I believe it is the same
everywhere in the world. But in Lebanon, lunch with colleagues is an
occasion for very specific male behaviour. At one point, the chatting
stops and the munching begins; a collection of impressive jaws
bearing down on the defenceless pita sandwich. Two manly bites and
the sandwich is gone, and off we go to the next. It is a silent but
fierce competition where all the contenders are required to show
their teeth. The bigger the bite, well... I'll let you imagine what's
at stake.
In the mid-1990s, in order to answer this growing phenomenon, fast
food joints decided to launch a new product: the Worker's Sandwich.
It is really not different from a traditional sandwich, except it's
three times bigger. You could get a Worker's falafel, shawarma,
makanik, or anything you decided to wrap in an oversized pita bread.
It really made all those men happy. Armed with their sixteen-inch
sandwiches, they could finally parade their manhood.
How much of a man are you, anyway? Go to Abu Ahmad. He will tell you.
When you enter the small restaurant and order your sandwich, he will
look at you from the top to the bottom and will make his judgement:
'Two women's falafel, two!'
Barbar: A Success Story
Sandwiches that give you your independence, sandwiches that make you
feel like a real man. These are marketing concepts that a Lebanese
fast food owner needs to understand in order to make his business
work. But those who make it really big in the extremely competitive
world of Lebanese fast food need to have something more, a little
spark of genius to stand out from the others; innovation combined
with a talent to understand and satisfy the people.
In 1982, Barbar opened in the midst of the civil war. It was a small
bakery in the popular area of Hamra, at first solely dedicated to
manouché: manouché zaatar, minced meat manouché, manouché kichk (a
sour dried milk powder) and the traditional manouché with runny
bulgary cheese, except that it was surprisingly topped with sesame
seeds. This small innovation was the launch pad for the small bakery
of Mohammad Ghaziri also known as Barbar.
'Did you try Barbar's sesame and cheese manouché?' People started to
talk about it and the word of mouth spread like a trail of gunpowder.
The fact that it stayed open through the most dramatic days of the
war also contributed greatly to Barbar's popularity. 'Twenty-four
hours I'm telling you! They never close.' People recall that it only
closed once in honour of two of its employees who were killed in a
bombing. Another legend of the Lebanese civil war was born, and the
manouché bakery took off.
Galvanized by these early successes, Barbar started a wild,
ill-defined door to door expansion, moving in and occupying every
little neighbouring shop whose owner was prepared to surrender.
In a year, the shawarma snack bar and the small falafel shack opened.
Later, following the trend started by the notorious 'King of
Vitamin', Barbar opened a fruit cocktail and ice cream shop offering
exotic juices such as the Mandela, a chocolate milk shake with banana
slices, the Noriega and Castro cocktails, or even the Hitler, a
blood-red strawberry cocktail garnished with almonds and pine nuts,
topped with whiter than white whipped cream. Finally, a restaurant
with seating space, a submarine sandwich joint and a butcher's shop
completed the Barbar food armada. Soon the little passageway in Hamra
became known as Barbar Street and, between the cocktail shop and the
sub sandwich restaurant, the street is now blocked by the sign: 'Road
Open to Barbar Clients Only'.
Although they are only a few meters apart, every Barbar restaurant
has its own kitchen, its own accountancy department and its own
employees; a real structural disadvantage due both to the lack of
planning and the resolve of remaining shop owners determined to
resist Barbar's expansionist plans. The owner of a two-meter wide
clock shop, for example, only surrendered half of his small space to
Barbar, keeping the other half for himself. One meter of silver watch
display still separates the falafel shop and the shawarma snack bar.
But this is also part of Barbar's charm with its strange, original
architecture and its waiters running around the street from one
restaurant to the other, shopping for the cocktail, the falafel plate
and the baked entrees you've ordered while comfortably seated in the
restaurant.
Now let's do what everybody has been itching to do. Let's look at the
menu. More than 200 items! The Francisco Sub with chicken, corn,
mayonnaise and soya sauce was introduced in a period when Beiruti
palates began appreciating Asian food. The Soiree is another
creation. Initially intended to imitate the petit four, it is really
like a mini pirojki with Lebanese fillings such as minced shishtaouk
instead of the traditional Russian cabbage or potato. 'Mr Ghaziri
travels a lot and brings us all kinds of new food ideas from abroad,'
says a Barbar manager when asked about their innovation policy.
Barbar is innovative, but in the vein of some of the politicians
after whom Ghaziri has named his cocktails, he is most of all a true
populist, taking any food idea and trend that his clients are
susceptible to and adapting it to Lebanese tastes. Why go anywhere
else? You can find anything and everything at Barbar's: take-away
pizza, hamburgers, subs, chicken fried 'Kentucky style', fajita
sandwich, Chinese chicken, donuts even. You name it, Barbar has it.
But everything has been transformed a little bit. The sandwiches and
hamburgers have a little more garlic than usual, the pizzas come
garnished with soujouk or makanik sausage, and it is probably the
only place in the world where you can order a 'lamb's-brain sub
sandwich all dressed'! Even certain names, like the French 'croisson'
in the Barbar's breakfast menu, have been adapted to suit the
Lebanese.
But Barbar had bigger dreams and ambitions. He learned from his
structural problems and made a plan. In 2001, the new Barbar Spears
Street was inaugurated. One long, single space for the falafel, the
bakery, the shawarma, the sub and the take-away restaurants; and a
back-door alley for the employees to move freely from one space to
the other. At the same time, new competition from foreign fast foods
forced him to raise his standards. As the Barbar manager explains,
'We have now very strict policies on nail cutting, hand washing and
hair hygiene... what's the word... Transparency, yes... we like our clients
to see everything.'
And indeed we see everything that is happening behind the counter;
but most of all, we are blinded by the food galore exposed in front
of us. From left to right: pickles, lettuce, taratór, shishtaouk,
fajita chicken, fried fish, fish filet, fried calamari, shrimps,
surimi, French fries, spicy potatoes, shawarma meat, shawarma
chicken, makanek, soujouk, bastirma, lamb's-feet, lamb's-brain... Along
the high density traffic of Spears Street, a fifty-meter long display
of colourful, cold, hot, spicy, exotic, meats, salads, fried and
baked foods that you are welcome to arrange at will in a sub or pita
sandwich.
It's as if the sailboat of Barbar's dreams suddenly materialised in
front of us. With its high ceiling, giant posters, and blue and pink
neon lights visible from far away, Barbar Spears is the Taj Mahal of
fast food, the ultimate Lebanese street feeding machine; a model that
Barbar is now exporting abroad to the Gulf and other Arab countries.
The King of Kaak
I never feel as lost, confused and panicked as on Saturday mornings
after a night of partying when I open the fridge and realise there is
nothing to eat. Hunger grabs me and the urge to fill the empty
stomach drives me crazy. I start opening all the drawers and
cupboards in the kitchen: a jar of pickles, mustard, Tabasco ... that
won't do. I search every corner of the house with frenzy and a
growing feeling of desperation. Defeated, I sit on my bed and face
reality. I have to dress and go outside the house to buy breakfast.
As I drag myself out on to the street and the summer sunrays start
warming my body, I feel hopeful again. I know that soon I will come
across a kaak vendor pedalling in the opposite direction. 'Kaak!
Kaak!' the young man shouts. On a wooden frame on the back of his old
bicycle, the sesame topped, crescent-shaped galettes are hung in
several rows. As he lifts the plastic sheets protecting the kaak, I
try to decide on the filling: Zaatar or picon? I choose picon, the
'Famous French cream cheese' found only in Lebanon. 'Thank god for
the kaak street vendors!' That's all I can think as I bite into the
crispy golden kaak envelope stuffed with the soft cheese.
For as long as I can remember, there have been kaak vendors in
Beirut. Hundreds of street carts and bicycles patrolling the streets
of the city in search of ravenous souls like mine. They are a gift,
or better, a public service; always there when you need them. For 750
LL or fifty cents, you can fill your stomach and satisfy cruel
hunger.
'Where do all these kaaks come from anyway?' Without hesitation, the
seller answers, 'Abu Ali.' When I ask him where I can find this man,
he tells me to go further up the line of vendors and ask again,
saying, 'They will surely know.' Slowly, I work my way up from
Gemmayze to Basta; and with every kaak vendor that I meet, I am
greeted with the same answer: 'Abu Ali? Of course! Go further up and
ask. Everybody knows Abu Ali.'
In the narrow streets of Basta, I follow the trails that lead to the
bakery of Abu Ali. Vendors with empty carts accompany me through the
traffic. From the opposite direction, those loaded with the fresh
kaak start singing the calls that they have repeated relentlessly for
years: 'Kaak for the morning, kaak for the evening.' 'Kaak, kaak, buy
my kaak.' The cycle of nasal, high-pitched voices is a lullaby that
seems to carry the strong smells of freshly baked galette and toasted
sesame.
Further up in the street, as the concentration of people, voices and
smells becomes thicker, workers are unloading enormous bags of flour
from a big truck. I realize that I have arrived. The place is small
and humble. No door, no windows, just a few steps separate the street
from the single space oven. As I start my way up, a young man
instantly blocks the entrance and asks me: 'Yes? What do you want?'
'I... I'm a reporter doing an article on kaak. I would like to meet Abu
Ali.' As he lets me in, I feel privileged.
I have no difficulty recognizing Abu Ali. He is an old man and his
authority over the young workers, and everybody else around, is
unmistakable. The place is busy and he controls the operations. 'Go
wash your hands,' he orders one of his employees. 'What are you
doing? Not here! Get a brain!' he blasts the exhausted hauler whose
body is nearly collapsing under a bag of flour three times his
weight. Even to his sole clients, the kaak vendors, he is
unremittingly tough, never stepping down from the heights of his
bakery and never letting them up the stairs.
With me, however, he is extremely charming. He smiles and tells me
everything I want to know: he's been working in the business since
1957. Before that his father and grandfather owned a kaak bakery in
the old downtown. His sons, however, will not succeed him. 'They are
all doctors, engineers or something like that.' He says it so sadly
that he makes me feel like taking over myself.
He tells me about the dark days of kaak, during the 1990s when people
used to associate kaak vendors with Syrian intelligence. In reaction
he decided to paint the red and white Lebanese colours and the
national Cedar tree on the walls of the bakery. Many kaak vendors
also pin Lebanese flags on their carts to show their patriotism. He
tells me about his business and projects. He produces up to 6,000
kaaks a day and has just signed a contract to deliver mini-kaaks to
Middle East Airlines for their early breakfast flight.
When the interview is over, he carefully chooses a piece of kaak from
the racks near the oven. With his thumb, he makes a hole in it and
fills it with his personal thyme mix (zaatar) which he keeps hidden
under a table. 'This one's for you,' he says. Slowly, he lights a
Cuban cigar and waves to me to come and sit outside next to him. 'I
love cigars but I never smoke after 2.00 PM. At my age, I have to be
careful!'
Sitting on his plastic chair outside the bakery, cash in one hand and
cigar in the other, Abu Ali lords it over the street and all the kaak
vendors. He has succeeded, in authentic Lebanese style.
The Rise and Fall of the Mac
I will never forget the surreal scenery of Ain El Mraisse during
Ramadan. It is 4.30 in the November afternoon and the sun is setting
in beautiful colours that seem to say: we're not in Europe, we're not
in Asia, we're in the middle. The place, usually overcrowded with
pedestrians, is totally deserted. People have answered the call of
the muezzin announcing the end of the fast. In this still and
ethereal atmosphere, the voice seems to envelope everything around
it: the palm trees standing at the beginning of the Corniche, the
mosque on the other side of the street and in between, sticking out
with its bright red and yellow colours, the two-storey McDonald's
restaurant.
During the war, people dreamt of having a McDonald's in Beirut. They
considered that it would be a sign that civilization had finally
reached us. The notorious 'M' sign was copied and used by several
fast food establishments. 'M' stood for Massis, the renowned Armenian
fast food restaurant with its exquisite soujouk sandwiches and famous
'Odour-free-Bastirma'. We even had our own 'McDonald's' though its
mascot was not Ronald, the ever-smiling clown, but Donald the Duck.
It was as close to civilization as we could get.
Civilization... We asked for it and we got it big time. Along with the
new roads, the new infrastructure, the new international airport, a
brand new downtown, cellular phone networks, satellite TV, superstar
European DJs and modern beach resorts, the thirteen-year long effort
to reconstruct Lebanon after the war lead to the opening of 9
McDonald's, 8 Burger Kings, 4 KFCs, 11 Starbucks, 6 Dunkin Donuts, 1
TGI Fridays and 8 Pizza Huts. And for a little while, everybody was
happy. While buying our children a happy meal, we had the impression
that 'Lebanon (was) moving toward better days' - as McDonald's
Lebanese franchise owner Jean Zoghzoghi puts it; and of course the
international fast food chain executives were happy to find another
four million healthy bellies willing to be filled.
But this golden period was not meant to last. Like a new toy, the
Lebanese played with the Whopper, tried the McFlurry and collected
all the party favours from TGI Fridays. Today, the hype is gone and
the spirit of our good old falafel and shawarma is back.
A friend once told me that what she loved about McDonald's is that
wherever you go in the world, you can be assured of getting the same
quality and the same taste. In other words: everybody is equal in
savours and flavours. This is the strength of the Big Mac. And this
is precisely why it will fail here in Lebanon. Listen carefully
Ronald McDonald: we do not want to be standard. We want to be an
exception. We do not want to be treated like everybody else. We want
to be special. When we order a sandwich, we ask the chef to prepare
it 'Alla Zawaak' (to his own taste). I want him to look at me, guess
how much taratór, how much onion and tomato would suit my palate. I
want a sandwich tailor-made for me. 'This falafel sandwich, Mr
Kassar, is just for you. Nobody else in the world has eaten one like
this, I can assure you.'
And then there's the politics. At the beginning of the second
Intifada in September 2000, a campaign was launched in Lebanon and
other Arab countries to boycott US goods. 'The penny you spend buying
these products amounts to another bullet for the body of our brave
Palestinian brother,' the leaflet said in reference to the three
billion dollars a year of direct US aid to Israel. In April 2002,
after the six-week Israeli offensive in the West Bank and the forced
confinement of Arafat in his Ramallah headquarters, the fast food
boycott took on another dimension. Students in Beirut organized
sit-ins in Burger King, Starbucks and McDonald's. Tragically, bombs
were planted at Pizza Hut, KFC and McDonald's resulting in the injury
of a teenage girl and significant property damage.
McArabia
But global companies don't go down without a fight. To regain public
sympathy, targeted marketing campaigns were launched. Coca-Cola began
planting Cedar trees in the southern Lebanese town of Jezzine and has
recently sponsored the Palestinian national soccer team. On the
culinary front, Burger King and McDonald's decided to market new
sandwiches. Last year, the Kafta King and the McKafta were the stars
of the summer. More recently, the streets of Beirut were covered with
giant posters of the brand new McArabia.
I have taken it upon myself to try the McArabia for you. I have
allowed my bag to be searched at the door of McDonald's and undergone
the shame of having to loudly pronounce the words: 'One McArabia,
please.' Would a Swedish person accept asking for a 'McScandinavia'
or worse, a Frenchman order a 'McFrance'? But what the hell, I'm an
Arabian after all, so I pronounced the magic words and I received, in
reward, my sandwich.
On the back of the closed cardboard box, a small cartoon demonstrated
the correct procedure for opening the package and the most convenient
way to hold the sandwich. I am now in the 'Ready-to-Eat' position and
I can finally bite two slices of chicken burger wrapped in a
Mc-version of pita bread with shredded lettuce and tomato, topped
with a light mayonnaise-like sauce.
My verdict is immediate: bland, gummy... culturally neutral chicken.
Culturally neutral! I feel like I've just bitten into one of those
yellow Afghan aid packages specially designed not to hurt the
Afghani's religious feelings. They also had a cartoon explaining how
to eat the food, as well as an American flag, to make sure that there
was no misunderstanding the identity of the benefactor.
But there was a more serious flaw. There is no garlic in the Arabian
sandwich! It only struck me later when I realized that I had none of
the garlic-related inconveniences, which I usually experience after
eating a Lebanese sandwich. We put garlic sauce everywhere, and two
layers rather than one. It's called, 'Garlic extra!'
In the Beirut sandwich hall of fame, the chicken garlic and pickles
panini from Marrouche is first with no contest. A friend of mine who
used to live off it when she was a student and has now become a
vegetarian - another one lost to the cause - could not completely
abandon the intrinsic taste of the Marrouche sandwich. She now orders
a 'chicken sandwich, garlic extra, without chicken... thank you!'
But I have no illusions. I know that garlic is a forbidden ingredient
at McDonald's. Bad breath is not part of their image. They cannot
afford the bad publicity of someone kissing his girlfriend and her
saying, 'You! You have just eaten a McArabia.' KFC is more
accommodating. They understand our attachment to garlic, especially
with chicken. If you ask for it discretely, they will hand you one or
two cups of garlic sauce under the counter. But, shhhh, don't tell a
soul!
Angry Stomachs, Angry Arabs
It's not because Palestinian territories have been reoccupied, or
that Arafat is confined in his Ramallah headquarters -- miles away
from the nearest falafel shop -- that Burger King and McDonald's are
falling out of fashion in Lebanon. Let's, for once, not put the blame
on the Israelis or the Palestinians. Let's be honest with ourselves.
It is our stomachs. They are unsatisfied, and they are the culprits.
Not enough taste not enough garlic is the reason why we boycott,
organize sit-ins and throw stones. If the surest way to an Arab's
heart is his stomach then don't mess with it. War has been declared
on the culinary front and the guard at McDonald's is not searching
your bag for dynamite, a gun or a knife. He is looking for the
illicit garlic sauce, our own home-made chemical weapon. So, please,
for the sake of peace, start making better tasting sandwiches!
"My Lebanese Sandwich," by Maher Kassar and Ziad Halwani courtesy of
Transit Beirut: New Writing + Images, edited by Malu Halasa and
Roseanne Khalaf, (Saqi Books, 2004)