My trip to Jordan, part 2: I eat the food

I ate so much good food during my trip to Jordan that I have decided to make an entire post about the things I ate. There is nothing more fun when you go traveling than eating the cuisine of the place you are visiting. I would really encourage you to go to an Arab restaurant or supermarket near your house if you want to try some of the things I talk about. I'm mostly going to talk about things you can eat for dessert (naturally!), but Jordanians, like other Arabs, also have a lot of great food that you can eat before dessert.

I ended my last post with a photo of me lounging outside on some Bedouin cushions. Well, while I was lounging, I was eating some pastries called qatayif. Qatayif are a type of dumpling filled with creamy cheese or with sugar and nuts. These were filled with walnuts. They were sweet and delicious. Jordanians usually eat qatayif during Ramadan, which I will tell you about in my next post.

I enjoy some qatayif with nuts while sitting on my Bedouin cushions.

Not everything I ate was unhealthy, of course. My Bedouin cushions were shaded by a beautiful fig tree. Have you ever eaten a fig? They grow all around the countries that are near the Mediterranean, and they are common enough that you may be able to find some figs in an American grocery store. I definitely recommend that you try them. But there is nothing like reaching up and eating one when you are in Jordan sitting on your Bedouin cushions.

Figs growing on a fig tree.

I picked a whole bowl of figs. 

This is what a fig looks like after you cut it open.

After I ate a couple of figs, I figured I had eaten enough healthy food for the day. After that, I focused on dessert.

In the Middle East, people often make ice cream in a barrel with a big stick. This kind of ice cream is often associated with Turkey, where it is called dondurma, but it is really common in the Arab Middle East as well. It is mixed with a thickening agent called sahlab (or salep in Turkish), so it doesn't melt very fast even on a hot day. When you order it, the vendor uses his big stick to pound the ice cream in the barrel. This pounding makes it very thick and even chewy. Arabs generally serve it covered in pistachio nuts, which makes for a really tasty treat.

Some Arab ice cream covered in pistachio nuts.

Another great dessert that I tried in Jordan is called kunafeh. Kunafeh is made with a really sweet, soft white cheese. It is then cooked in dough and covered by a really sweet syrup and a sprinkling of pine nuts. It is generally made in a big round pan, though in this case I got a kind of kunafeh called kada'if, which means it is rolled up in a tube. If you look closely, you can see the creamy cheese inside the tube ready for me to eat. Kunafeh is really sticky because of the sweet syrup, so after I ate it, I had to wash my paws thoroughly.

I pose with my kunafeh before I devour it.

Finally, I also want to tell you about a great snack I found in Jordan called qamr al-din. Qamar al-din is made from lots and lots apricots, which have been sweetened and pressed into a sort of sticky, chewy paste. You can just rip off a piece and then have a snack! Like qatayif, qamar al-din is particularly associated with Ramadan, though you can enjoy it any time.

A picture of some qamar al-din.

Kyle ate the last of my qamar al-din before he remembered to take my picture with it, so instead I had to go online and find somebody else's photograph of it. This photo comes from a blog post in which two people living in Egypt talked about cooking qamar al-din into a kind of liquidy pudding. There are lots of other great photos of qamar al-din on their blog, so you might enjoy checking it out.

You can probably find Arab desserts like these much closer to where you live, so if you're hungry, then ask your parents to take you out for a snack!

--Benny