By Noura Al Hammadi ~
Deep in the United Arab Emirates lies a silent food revolution-its genesis in heritage but its future for forward. Throughout the Emirates, a new culinary master class is recasting Emirati cooking by blending traditional recipes with modern, sustainable approaches. Why? In regard to cultural heritage, rescuing the world and serving society.
All this “dine local” hullabaloo has nothing to do with what’s on your plate—where it came from, how it was raised, and what’s leftover.
Rooted in the Land
Among them in group forecasting were Dubai chef Khaled Al Saadi, local amateur togetherness shopper and homegrown ingredients seller. Breakfasts in his image in Dubai kitchens take flight for desert and beach. Foreign fare surrenders to home-raised herbs, sustainably caught Arabian Gulf seafood, and multi-generation generations of multi-generation spice mixes generation by generation.
“All that we have is here,” argues Khaled. “With what the world has, we adhere to our heritage and leave light.” His food honors Emirati heritage food not only in trying to save flavor profiles but for seasonality and preserving biodiversity—two of the basic pillars of sustainability.
Waste Not, Want More
As committed as Abu Dhabi pop-up kitchen whizmaster Chef Amina Al Nuaimi, the pioneering chef and aspirational zero-waste hero. Not a crumb of an ingredient is wasted in her kitchen. Fish heads get used as broths. Date pits are crushed into spice mixes. Vegetable peels even end up being used in pickling and fermentation.
“We waste so much,” says Amina. “But our grandparents didn’t waste. They saved, recycled, and respected every mouthful.”
Amina’s impromptu street performances and jam sessions have put sustainability and wastage in the limelight, at least among young Emiratis who want to return to their past ways recently.
Hospitality with a Conscience
This green revolution has far-reaching effects beyond the plate. Sharjah restaurant owner and green activist Sheikha Farah Al Qassimi has already set the standard by converting her restaurant into a blueprint block of an eco-cafe blueprint that others would do well to follow. From offsetting menus printed on recycled paper to offering rebates to customers who dine out in reusable utensils and containers, her blueprints for green dining out encompass all these.
“Greenness is an ethos of hospitality,” she states. “It’s being there—being there to the guest, being there to the world, being there to the future.”
Seasonal Tables, Sustainable Futures
Global warming and increasing shortages of food made it topical. Chefs like Chef Omar Al Muhairi are making it work by surfing the wave of the times. His restaurant-level menu also shifts month by month according to new organic produce from local organic farms based on their own sustainable desert agriculture techniques like hydroponics and aquaponics.
By purchasing directly from Liwa farmers and Al Ain farmers, Omar isn’t drawing his food out of rural environments and communities. “If we eat seasonally, we eat on purpose,” he says.
More Than a Meal
This new awareness as gourmets is attracting foreign gourmets, ecologists, and food writers to their doorstep. The Emirati chefs are declaring good health can never come at the cost of taste—never, never, tradition. And here is the invitation to re-inventing tradition once again and with pride.
“Food tells our story,” says Amina. “And when we cook sustainably, we make that story continue.”
It’s not hip to “eat local” in the UAE—apparently, it’s a slogan. It’s a case of being culture-sensitive, stepping up to the challenge of the day, and creating a more thrifty, united society.
