The Foundation of the Sufra (shared bread torn by hand)
Khubz and Dates — Traveler's Flatbread and Dates
EverydayDocumented🍯facile45 min
A flatbread of unleavened flour, baked in minutes against the wall of a clay oven or on a hot griddle, torn by hand to eat with soft dates. Simple, nourishing, the quintessential desert meal.
Why this dish? Her anchor notes mention: flatbread and dates were Stark's daily fare in Arab regions. Eating little, she often made do with a torn piece of bread and a handful of dates to get through a day of walking.
A traveler soon learns to be content with little, and I have never eaten anything better, on certain mornings, than a still-warm bread torn between the fingers. It is baked in an instant against the walls of a clay oven, it puffs, it browns, and you tear off a piece to wrap two or three dates. That is all: bread for strength, dates for the heart. When you walk all day under a great sun, believe me, that is quite enough to make you happy.
Ingredients
- •Wheat flour — according to the mouths to feed (bread base)
- •Water — enough for a supple dough (binder)
- •Salt — a pinch (seasoning)
- •Dried dates — a handful per person (sweet accompaniment)
How it was made : The most rustic Bedouin bread is baked unleavened on a convex griddle (saj) or even on a hot stone placed on embers; some tribes bury it under heated sand. Dates, dried and easy to carry, complete this bread by providing sugar and energy—an immemorial duo on desert routes.
Sources : Freya Stark, The Valleys of the Assassins (1934)