Whole barley flour, water, salt, kneaded and baked as a flatbread on a hot stone or against the wall of a clay oven. Dense, with a hint of bitterness, it is the daily bread that is broken, dipped, and shared.

Why this dish? Aisha reported that the Prophet's family never ate their fill of barley bread two days in a row, and that the household sometimes went weeks without lighting a fire. This humble flatbread is the very bread of her austere table, the foundation of all Medinan frugality.

Do you want to know what we truly ate? Barley bread, and rarely to satiety. I would knead wholemeal flour with water and a little salt, without sifting — the barley of the rich would have been bolted, ours kept its bran. I spread it with my palm and baked it on the hot stone. Two days in a row eating our fill of this bread? That did not happen during my husband's lifetime. And yet, broken and soaked in milk, this flatbread seemed a grace to us.

How it was made : Without leavening or modern ovens, these flatbreads were baked on the malla (heated stone or sand) or against the wall of a clay oven (tannūr). Unsifted barley, more bitter and rustic than wheat, was the people's grain; white wheat bread was a rare luxury in Medina.

The contemporary twist : Sprinkle the hot flatbread with za'atar and a drizzle of olive oil: the Medinan barley bread as a Levantine street-food twist.

Sources : Sahīh al-Bukhārī, hadiths of Aisha on barley bread and the frugality of the prophetic household · Studies on breads and ovens (tannūr) of ancient Arabia

Aisha · Charactorium