For The Love of Food

Something spectacular happens at night within the Al Khuwair area. The locals have gotten accustomed to the scene just like they have gotten used to the magnificence of the architecture around them. Sometimes it’s easy to misinterpret that people in Oman no longer appreciate what is before them.

There is so much to say about the architecture in Oman and just like the complexities of its many structures, there is so much to say and discover regarding the food scene here as well.

Sitting on one of the chairs outside of Istanboly,the one close to Rawasco, locals and foreigners come and go undisturbed by the different delicious smells some of turmeric, others of onions, ginger, garlic etc. coming from the multitude of small eateries dotting the area.

It is interesting to note that although there might be hundreds of places to eat in such a trifling area, little had been written about them. It makes one wonder, why is it that for a nation that has eclectic food scene, people aren’t too interested in writing about them?

Food has a certain way of bringing people together. For many expats who have traveled thousands of miles, food often connects them to home. A meal, if cooked properly and with refined expertise, can always evoke the feeling of nostalgia. It has a way of bringing you back memories and transporting you to a far gone time, to years that had gone by.

For a brief moment, food would allow you to re-live the things that were. It was my grandmother who told me once that there is a story in food,that there is a certain history in a preparation of a meal that cannot be learned from written history or texts. She said that if you know how to listen and feel, every dish will give you the secret of its owners and lay before you the story of a generation and of a people who’ve lived and die and yet, whose culinary secrets lived on. She said that there is something exciting about new dishes, too. As they passed from one hand to another, you will learn how the food mutates and how it earns its own history and character.

I am not a chef. But I cook meals that tell the story of my own people and my family. I don’t have a degree to judge the quality of a certain food but just like most people, I have the taste bud and the palate to tell the difference between what is delicious and what isn’t. My palate is not refined but I have the audacity of one Anthony Bourdain to try anything.

In this country of about 4.5 million, 1 million and a few change of which are expats, we are separated by skin colour, culture, history, nation, religion and gender. Regardless of the things that make us different, that nature to consume food, to get sustenance, to get stronger, to be alive — that yearning to survive is the same for everyone.

It unites us in a different level, on a more human level and it is why I thought it is about time to explore the wondrous culinary scene of Oman, because although we are all different, food connects us all as humans. We all eat.

There is something spectacular happening at night within the Al Khuwair area. The restaurants and the eateries open up, calling people in. This spectacular scene is echoed all throughout the Sultanate and there are so much food to explore.

The food scene in Oman has always been ready for the world. The question that needed asking now however, is Oman ready to share its culinary genius to the world?