Old Dubai, from above resembles a very dusty Swindon, On the ground though, under the shade of the buildings and down cramped alleyways, is a much more exciting reality.
It’s a short air-conditioned drive from the glitz and glamour of Dubai Marina and downtown Dubai, but the old town feels a world apart. For a start, people actually walk around – downtown most roads don’t even have pavements. You can sit outside at cafes, sniff at spice stalls and sweet shops, and wander through tight streets and jagged alleys that would never be found by the coast. The international influences are just as pronounced in Old Dubai as in the rest of the city – and though the food comes from much closer to home, it’s still wildly varied. On the outskirts of the city there’s endless forms of food, but they all have a pattern. Rice features in just about every meal, and goat and fish have special places too.
Although fish is one of the more abundant ingredients in the area, thanks to being by the sea – the Dubai fish market it a sight to be seen – a lot of the fish is cured or smoked to make it last in the searing heat. But Dubai is a desert. Very little grows here, – certainly not enough for the 2 million residents. Everything, even the people, have to be brought in. Different cultures, ingredients and dishes rub together through immigration and importation of ingredients – but modern fusion is not the order of the day here.
“The term ‘melting pot’ is overused,” says Arva Ahmed, who grow up in Dubai. “Old Dubai is more of a mezze platter. You don’t combine baba ganoush and houmous, but they can go with lots of other things on the same plate. People here love sharing their culture and food – you only have to look hungrily at a shop’s display to be offered free food – but they don’t necessarily mix.”
Most traditional Middle Eastern recipes came about through necessity. Fresh produce was rare before globalization brought wealth and imported goods to the area. So many of the ingredients that indigenous people cooked with were cured or dried. A real taster of this is Mansaf, a yoghurt-braised lamb dish from Jordan. It is not just any yoghurt, however; this is Jameed or “rock cheese”, which is dehydrated into chalky balls for longer storage and easy transportation in the desert. The lamb and yoghurt is spiced and served with rice on top of a flatbread that soaks up all the sauce to make a really moreish, semi-crisp base.Another must try dish; Kunafa – a bizarre but beautiful Palestinian dessert of squeaky cheese coated in noodles, which is then fried and drowned in sugar syrup. It’s cooked on griddle pans the size of tractor wheels and found in pretty much every café around. The stringy cheese and crispy noodles come together with the sweet and salty flavours to make something hellishly moreish. Often it’s topped with smashed pistachios, which is a sign of generosity in the Middle East, but also adds a bit of welcome savouriness. It takes a few mouthfuls to understand what’s going on, but once you’re used to the idea it’s hard to stop.
Old Dubai’s cafés betray a severe sweet tooth, and the coffee shops are more noticeable for their arrays of edible treats than their heady smells of coffee. The Middle East is home to some of the most varied baklava. As one of the most tangible remnants of the Ottoman Empire (except maybe furniture), the baklava in shops stretches out as far as the eye can see – enough sweet filo pastry and nuts to make the entire empire suffer a sugar crash.Food in Old Dubai is a very tactile experience. New Dubai is built to be looked at, but Old Dubai is meant to be felt. While the downtown is influenced by people and places all around the world, Old Dubai reaches back in time, and only as far as it can reach – whether that’s literally across a carpet for some curry, or by boat as far as Turkey for some baklava. The sights of New Dubai are undoubtedly wondrous, but it’s the smells, sounds and tastes of Old Dubai that haul you in.
Source: Jonny Garrett, assistant editor of Jamieoliver.com
