It is really hard to cook in this country for me. Because the food situation is quite different from Japan.
First, about staple food, we can get simple thin bread which is like a
'Nan' Indian's bread and rice, Pasta, and so on. Arabic people prefer to
eat cooked rice with olive oil, garlic, meat (or fish), vegetable with
spice, tomato sauce together. Called 'Kapusa' is typical Arabic rice dish.
It's cooked as a luxurious dish on a special day when after Ramadan this
is the month they fast month. A Saudi woman told me, it is traditional
way to cook a 'Kapusa' with a whole young sheep. To my big surprise, at
the end of Ramadan, my Egyptian neighbor brought a young sheep in front
of the house's small garden and her employees slaughtered a young sheep.
Such a shocking scene it is! My daughter wanted to take a picture with
the sheep. The next day, there was only a separated body.
We saw a rope hung on a branch of the tree. Fortunately, I could not see the front of the poor sheep!
Secondly, there are many kind of tropical fish in the supermarket. I don't know how to cook this fish! I am not used to chopping the whole fish even in Japan. I struggled for skinning fish and cut up. But I noticed that it is better to ask the clerks.
'Excuse me. Without bones, please.' That is all.
We can get a kind of horse mackerels, sardines, cuttlefish, squids which is almost the same as the fish we eat in Japan. And, mackerels, and octopus also, but it is really hard to deal with it.
' When in Rome, do as the Romans do.'
I tried to cook and live on Arabic food. However, I am not able to do it. Because I don't like lamb at all! I am used to cooking imitation Japanese food with Arabic ingredients in my daily life.
By the way, I have never tried a camel!
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This is a 'Kapusa'. The brain, tongue, and eyes are also delicious?! |
| He is a clerk of the fish market. Look at this nice mustache. |
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The hung lamb at the butcher shop. ''Baa baa.'' |