By Tariq Al-Mahri ~
Yemeni food is not stink. Yemeni food was forty years ago on the fringe of history and by nation’s geographic belt of uplands and Arabian coast—Yemeni food was conceived an act of accommodation and national pride. Though all human beings on the face of the earth endowed their mouths with food hunger are endowed with such divine flavors, Yemeni food is stretched, searching for foreign buyers to give something precious to be inscribed in history, heritage, and hope.
Spices and Nutrition: the Pillar of Yemeni Cuisine
It is the bitter note flavor which is just short of Yemeni cuisine with coriander, cardamom, and cumin and all of them seasoning each meal and browning each of them. Spices are not condiments but a remembering of others who endured the turns of the world and to people who spent years learning and teaching Yemen.
beyond spice, geography has a rich heritage of fruit—in fresh Arabian Sea fish to front-page grains and legumes sown in upland soil in a climatic paradise. Yemeni agriculture’s commitment has stayed loyal to conventional farm tradition more or less, and they are custodians of such a grand tradition, transmitting proven skills but being willing to adapt to new needs. (More on Yemen’s agrobiodiversity heritage at FAO Yemen).
Mandi: Ground-and Generation-Spanning Feast
Yemen country Mandi would be more scented Mandi, oil-less slow-cooked rice having previously been served with beef or marinated chicken. Mandi ground-floor wood-baked customary ground-floor combined light-spiced rice and meat broth became ceremonial comfort-food feast.
Mandi touched upon Yemeni borders and the globe’s coolest Middle Eastern meals and food masters’ green-eyed monster for a whole bunch of food to food magic masters who can turn food into tasty food. People of the diaspora brought the world together with food, recipes, and legend that make food tasty with plenty of Yemeni-hospitality flavor.
Saltah: Yemen’s National Stew and Culinary Soul
Mandi as religious food, Saltah home dish and Saltah served better as national food of Yemen. Red piping hulbah sauce beef or mutton fenugreek long-cooked or long-stewed eaten with Jachnun, unsweet multilayered sweet bread.
The plain simplicity of Saltah’s taste and texture are further evidence of Yemeni restraint in the kitchen by plain preparation in the effort to feed body and soul. Even chefs are going to an excess of re-creating Saltah in their heads these days, creating new recipes but from this one of theirs. (A bit more about Al Jazeera’s food program’s Saltah as cultural icon).
Yemen Coffee Culture: Bean to Brew
No Yemen food tour would ever be complete without reference to its ancient coffee culture. Yemen, recall, is the birthplace of coffee culture and location where coffee cherries are hand-harvested and roasted from as early as the fermentation phase to produce earthy-flavored, fruit-spiced coffee. Yemen coffee was discovered by speciality coffee connoisseurs across the globe and occupied shelf space on speciality coffee shop shelves from the earth that gave it birth.
Foreign glory once again the exclusive preserve of Yemeni minds in coffee, ever unbeatable in the world’s favorite drink nation’s mind. (For complete history of coffee, see National Coffee Association.)
A Gastronomical Heritage of Resilience and Synthesis
Yemeni food is not spices and food, but a living witness of men and women’s readiness to live and fight with the sheer act of living, who never gave up in hand what they had into another hand when they could no longer do anything else. Our lives perhaps was savage, but Yemeni society continued—living, good, open arms embracing the world into an almost war-torn country.
By eating Yemeni food, customers everywhere are staking their own on tens of thousands of years of life and culture. That flavor—that full earthy-sad and laughterless—passed and mixed to surround and hold together communities and individuals, to pass Yemen’s culinary delights from parent to child.
