Mandi

It turns out that eating with your hands is an art form. There are many dishes here that are traditionally eaten from a big communal dish with your hands. With some of them, pita bread becomes the vehicle to get the food from the giant platter, with others, your fingers are the vehicle. If you have seen toddlers eat with their hands, you know how easy, and messy, it appears to be. All they have to do is stick their hands in whatever is placed before them and smear it around their face. This method would be a great diet because only a portion of the food actually makes it into your mouth. However, since we should be acting like grown-ups and not toddlers, it is generally frowned upon to make a mess while you are eating. It is also frowned upon to touch the food vehicle to your mouth and then put it back in the communal dish. In some cultures this is known as double dipping. But I have to say that when eating with your hands, the temptation to lick your fingers is pretty strong. Today I received my first lesson on eating with your hands. The name of the dish was mandi, a rice-based meal with chicken on top. I don't know what spices were used in the rice, but labna, a hot sauce, and some minced vegetables were also set on the table to eat with the rice. The setting was a table, low to the ground, with long couch cushions against the wall which are very convenient for taking a nice nap following a big meal. It took me a while to figure out how to eat appropriately with my hands, but after laughing at me a bit, one of the other, more experienced eaters, showed me what I needed to do.

Step 1: Add labna, hot sauce, chicken and/or veggies to your area of rice.
Step 2: Go ahead and mix that around a bit. Just make sure you stay in your area. It's very rude to mixwhat is in someone else's area or what is on the entire platter.
Step 3: Gather a bit of the rice mixture into your hand. Try to keep as much as possible of it toward the top of your hand. Things just get a bit more difficult if the food is all the way down to your pinky.
Step 4: Squeeze the rice. You want it to form a ball and the labna will help with that. If you don't squeeze it enough, it won't stick together. If you squeeze it too much, the juices will run out and it won't stick together.
Step 5: Move your thumb so that it is under the ball of rice and push it into your mouth. Be careful so that you don't stick your thumb in your mouth as well.
Step 6: Repeat until satisfied.

The food was delicious and part of that might have been the fact that it took so long to get every bite into my mouth so I had plenty of time to anticipate each one. One member of the group was a Jordanian. I was rather impressed at how efficient that method of eating can be. It was also pretty impressive to see how clean his hands stayed. I had to use several napkins afterward to clean up the extra labna, rice, and hot sauce that couldn't find their way to my mouth. All in all, it was a great adventure, one I hope to repeat soon.

=)