The Prophet Muhammad spoke about his fellow tribesmen on the Arabian Peninsula during the formation of Islam: "We are a people who do not eat until they are hungry, and when they eat, we are not satisfied." This statement eloquently testifies to the complete absence of the cult of food among Arabian Arabs during the early Middle Ages, until they reached the open spaces of the Middle East and North Africa. The contents of the Bedouin cauldrons were primitively tasteless. They were not spoiled by the exotic gifts of nature, and their nomadic celebrations were feasts of poetry, not holidays of the stomach.
The most delicious contribution to the diversity of Arabian cuisine was made by the Mediterranean peoples conquered by Islamic cavalry, whose culinary art developed thanks to close contact with Greek cuisine, under the influence of ancient Roman and later Turkish conquerors who knew a lot about food.
The Bedouins of Arabia did not contribute to the Arabic menu. What kind of taste preferences can we talk about in a society of nomads who had a limited selection of products in eternal wanderings in a barren desert with a water spout, a handful of coffee beans and dates luggage?
Even the greatest Meccan, who lived in the city, which was a major trading center of the time, lived unpretentiously on barley bread, dates and water. According to the memoirs of contemporaries of the prophet, Muhammad ibn Abdullah loved a simple pumpkin and used to say to his beloved wife: "Aisha, when you cook, put more pumpkin: it gives strength to the heart." He called meat "the main food of earthly and heavenly life," but he rarely ate it.
Along the way, it should be said that the prophet warned against eating with his left hand, because "only the devil eats and drinks like this." To act at the common table with your left hand, you need good reasons. Otherwise, you can commit a sin and bring yourself to suspicion.
The legends that have come down to us about the life of Muhammad testify that both locusts and desert lizards were served on his table. He said that Muslims are allowed to eat "two dead", which means, according to Arabic interpreters, fish and locusts.
There are various food prohibitions in Islam. You can’t eat pork, fox meat, young animals of wild animals and birds that still cannot move independently. Reptiles, in which blood doesn’t have a key when cutting off the head, as well as an elephant, bear, monkey, mouse, rat, lizard, are not considered pure. True, these prohibitions are lifted if the Muslim has no choice.
The introduction of locusts and lizards into the food menu is clearly caused by a lack of food resources on the Arabian Peninsula. It is noteworthy that locusts, lizards, and even camel milk were not fixed in the diet of Turkic and some other Muslim peoples, just like horse meat and koumiss did not become property
arabic cuisine.
Asma - the daughter of Abu Bakr - one of the closest companions of the prophet admitted: "We stabbed the horse during the time of the prophet and ate it." Her statement confirms the validity of horse meat as a food. But the roads were horses. It is no coincidence that the Arabs say: "He who has a horse and a wife never knows peace." Arabian Arabs do not eat horse meat.
The tribes living on the Arabian Persian Gulf had even less opportunities to pick and choose at the table than the people of the deep regions of the Arabian Peninsula. Inhabitants of the coast before Europeans got acquainted with Iranian and Indian cuisine, played an important role in spreading oriental spices throughout the world, but poverty did not allow them to diversify the table.
Cooking even a simple meal was not an easy task, as it was cooked on bonfires with a lack of combustible material. The food was scarce. The diet consisted mainly of milk and dates. Inhabitants of the coast throughout the year, and nomads ate in the pearl season, in addition, fish and rice imported from India, which was considered a medicine that prolongs life.
Caught fish had to be eaten for several hours. It was prepared only for lunch, because it was impossible to maintain the catch even until evening in local climatic conditions. Those who lived round the clock in remote oases or nomads all year round have never eaten fresh fish. Part of the catch was salted and sold to the Bedouins, but it was too salty. We ate it in extreme cases.
There was no poultry. There wasn’t enough meat, because cattle were kept, first of all, for the sake of milk. Those who lived in Abu Dhabi did not even have clean fresh water and used a brackish well. They did not know canned food, but it was not possible to import perishable food and it did not make sense in the absence of refrigerators. Variety in the diet was introduced by locusts. In old people, these large sand-colored insects, fluttering from green lawns dying from the summer heat of the emirate cities, still cause nostalgia. Until recently, the inhabitants of the Arabian Peninsula were more likely to wait for locust invasions than they were afraid of them. The "Tikhama" one, which flew from the eponymous lowland in the southwest of the peninsula, was considered the best. Clouds of winged insects were met by the Arabian Arabs from Yemen to Kuwait by the battle of drums and the thunder of tin containers. The entire population, from small to large, was stocked with bags, a snout of a pit for storing prey, and barns clogged it.
Locusts were dried and sold. Gourmets fed females, bombarding flour with insects with broken legs and torn wings to give them a body full of eggs. Finished semi-finished products were fried on thin skewers. The recipe was simple: you need to plant a dozen insects on a skewer, piercing the center of the abdomen, and hold over hot coals, constantly turning over the heat until the carcasses turn golden brown. It was possible to fry in a pan in oil, sprinkled with salt and pepper. Cooking was also possible. Ready locusts were served to the table separately and with rice, sometimes adding dates. Some people think that dzharrad / locust / tastes like mushrooms. Old people say: “Here is the dish. And it’s not a shame to order, and
impossible to come off. "
Kuwait in the 1950s, already extracting oil, even imported dried locusts from Iran. Until the 60s, the “thunderstorm of cornfields” was a favorite delicacy here and was even considered a healing delicacy. About giant grasshoppers were composed poems. The proverb "Locust has flown up - take away the medicine" has survived to this day. The truth in this phrase, as in any folk wisdom, is. Locusts contain three times as much protein as chicken meat. So the love of locusts among the Arabian Arabs is not accidental: the Jarrades saved their lives.
In the Emirates, locusts are now not sold on the roars, and in neighboring Saudi Arabia, the flight of winged animals is met with the same enthusiasm. When insect clouds appear, villagers try to get ahead of nature conservation teams in order to fill bags with prey before it is hit by insecticides.
The power of traditional taste preferences is amazing. For several decades, Saudi Arabia has been prospering. Not everyone has become millionaires in the leading oil-producing country in the world, but only those royal citizens who do not have the strength or desire to get to the nearest social assistance committee or charitable organization, or even just to a road intersection with outstretched hands, are sure to help! At the same time, a rare Saudi will refuse roasted locusts. This year, an ordinary store bag of fresh insects weighing up to 500 grams cost, according to the press of the kingdom, from 50 to 300 Saudi riyals (13-80 US dollars). Officials complained that the population was stopping the fight against the raids of the winged hordes, collecting insects and preventing the spread of insecticides.
Gluttonous grasshoppers could well replace the hams of ham to the Arabian inhabitants even today if they had not used the chemicals used against them. Protein delicacy has become dangerous to health and it does not appeal to residents of the Emirates.
The same can be said about local dishes of lizard meat, which the Emirates turned away from, but the Saudis did not refuse. Lizards bred even near the emirate’s capital, indicating that the local gastronomic interest in them has expired. This summer, during the expansion of Abu Dhabi International Airport, a huge colony of these reptiles was discovered. She totaled about 200 individuals. Even the aerodrome noise did not bother the most mundane animals of the planet, so calmly they felt close to people. They were peacefully evicted from their homes, and now they probably dug holes somewhere nearby.
Desert lizards, which the local population calls "dobb", reach a length of 85 centimeters. These are harmless, herbivorous reptiles that can do without water, content with plant juices. Sand dragons are considered in the country as one of the elements of the "national natural heritage" and since 1982 are under state protection. They relate to endangered species of animals, displaced by humans from their usual habitat. Since 1999, they are prohibited from trading in the Emirates. Before the ban, the tailed reptile could be bought for lunch or kept tied by the tail in reserve in case an unexpected guest arrives.
There have been no recent reports in the country that these reptiles, which are among the oldest reptile species on earth, are still eaten. Although it cannot be ruled out that the elderly remember the past with a dish of fried lizard with rice.
In Saudi Arabia, dragons continue to be eaten. Under the hot sun they gain weight, walk up the body. In the period of the greatest activity of reptiles in the midst of a hot summer, their fishing in desert regions is one of the favorite entertainments of youth. In the second half of September, the sands begin to cool, and reptiles climb into burrows. By spring, they will use up their fat reserves and will no longer be of interest to local gourmets.
Catchers shoot dragons, tear holes or fill them with water, forcing the inhabitants to get out into the light. Car exhaust is sometimes used to smoke the inhabitants of burrows, which strongly condemn the public and the press. The shot production is usually on its own table, caught alive sent to the market.
In the Riyadh bird market in the summer days, lizards have been almost the best seller in recent years. In any case, they were offered more often than pigeons in high demand. Small ones were sold from hand to hand, medium ones were offered in cages, and large individuals were sometimes kept on a leash.
Fingers the size of a finger cost the buyer a dozen dollars. They are mainly bought by children, for entertainment. Old people - the main adherents of traditional cuisine - avoid such goods: what a richness is from it, and a lot of fuss. Large lizards are several times more expensive.
Hunting lizards has become so widespread in the kingdom that their very existence in local deserts is threatened. Now catching lizards walking during the hot summer months with bellies and fat tails flapping on their sides is allowed only for personal purposes and family use. Police inspect counters and confiscate hunting trophies for sale.
The restriction of hunting for long-tailed reptiles was introduced at the initiative of the National Organization for the Protection of Wildlife, which declared the lizards a “national treasure” as one of the oldest reptile species on earth.
Many older Saudis prefer lizard meat with rice garnish over fish or chicken. Some, however, admit that they have to eat this dish either with peers or alone, since young households turn away from such treats even when they are prepared from their own prey.
Half the length of the reptile is a weighty fat tail. He is the tidbit for the Bedouin. From it they melt fat, prepare soups. The meat is fried on charcoal. Preference is given to females. It is believed that they have the softest, most delicious fillet, reminiscent of the taste of fish, steppe hare and even chicken.
Folk doctors say that fat, sunk from lizards, strengthens the body and gives it vitality, strengthens potency, cures rheumatism, diabetes, stomach diseases, lowers blood pressure and soothes nerves. Modern medicine does not share this opinion and even, on the contrary, believes that meat of lizards with a concentrated fat content increases the amount of cholesterol in the blood, contributes to the development of
cholelithiasis and atherosclerosis, but the nomads trust the folk experience more.
The Saudis have another traditional favorite dish, which has survived to this day, probably from those times when not every nomad had even enough dates and camel milk. It is made from small jerboa jerboas. These long-eared rodents with rat tails and the manner of movement characteristic of kangaroo at the end of each summer become objects of mass hunting. The animals are driven out of the holes, spotlighted at night with the headlights of cars, beaten with sticks, thrown with rags and even shot from rifles. The prey is fried on charcoal bonfires and in pans, eaten with rice or crushed wheat. Most lovers of traditional cuisine eat jerboa like their ancestors ate - uninitiated. Modern medicine is beginning to oppose the unsanitary approach to national delicacy. Doctors explain that in the giblets of jerboas can be bacteria, parasites, fungi. The risk of infection with liver viruses is not excluded. But to argue in vain. Jerboa is eaten in the same way as they consume dried locusts, preferring queen bees with full belly.
De gustibus non disputandum, as they said in ancient Rome. Tastes differ!
Victor Lebedev
