Saladin at the table

The meal is not divided into starter-main-dessert but spread out on the sufra, the large leather or cloth sheet placed directly on the ground around which people sit. Savory dishes (tharid of soaked bread, sweet-and-sour sikbaj), dried preserved meats, almond sweets (halawiyat), and perfumed drinks (sharab, sekanjabin) are arranged together. One eats with the right hand, starting by invoking Allah, and hospitality dictates that a great man's table is always open to the traveler and the poor. The order is free: sweet and savory coexist, and the chilled drink accompanies the entire meal.

Two signatures of medieval Arab-Muslim cuisine. Murri, a sauce made from long-fermented grains (the "garum" of the East), provides salty-umami depth to stews. And everywhere reigns the sweet-and-sour balance — vinegar married with honey or dates — inherited from the Perso-Abbasid table and brought to its peak in the kitchens of Damascus and Cairo frequented by Saladin.