LEBANESE SOUL-1 : MATAAM LEBNANI

LEBANESE SOUL : my book-in-progress, about that « miracle » of still feeling Lebanese, despite decades out of Lebanon ! 

Chapter 1 :

MATAAM LEBNANI (Lebanese Restaurant)

Eating Lebanese food in a Lebanese atmosphere - decoration and music - and among other Lebanese families (who make up the majority of the clients in any good Lebanese restaurant in the world), is one of my mom’s greatest pleasures in life - and one of my greatest too ! So last Sunday I had lunch with my Mom in a fancy Lebanese restaurant, near the Champs-Élysées.

As on each Sunday, Molokheyya and Kharouf Mahshi are on the menu - these two dishes being traditional « Sunday dishes » in Lebanon. Molokheyya are green leaves of a vegetable with a very complicated name in latin - see Wikipedia below ! And Kharouf (lamb) Mahshi (stuffed) is stuffed lamb as you have guessed - lamb being the most valued type of meat in the Middle East, where we have very few rich pastries and cows. 

Since our family has been coming to this restaurant for years, my mom knows all the staff, and she is happy to be welcomed with a big smile by Ali, Karim or the owner himself (sorry I don’t know his name - my mom does !), and with an enthusiastic « Ahlan Madame Khouri ! Keef al hhal ? Ahlan ! Ahlan ! » (Welcome Mrs. Khouri ! How are you doing ? Welcome ! Welcome ! ). Yes we Lebanese are very emphatic when we talk, we love repeating things twice or more ! 

My mom loves the Fayruz songs which invariably play, she loves the Oriental decoration - oh a very soft and discreet Oriental touch, within a contemporary interior design - and most of all : she loves being given the opportunity to talk in Lebanese  with other families and clients !

Contact has thus been quickly taken with the family sitting on the table next to us : a family of 8, three generations, they are Lebanese-Venezuelan, half of them are children - very likely born in Venezuela. The woman who seems of my age calls her father « Paaapy », with this typical long « A » required by the Lebanese accent. She seems proud and excessively happy to be able to exchange a few words of Arabic with the waiter : shukran (thank you) or eemel maaruf (please - which she cannot pronounce « e3mel ma3ruf » with that guttural « ayn » letter, hard to pronounce for foreigners : was she born in Venezuela ? Did her parents emigrate when she was a kid, like myself ? I wonder…

The father - and grandfather of the kids - who is in his 80’s apparently, speaks fluently Lebanese, and he seems even happier than his daughter, to have a whole conversation with us in his native tongue : his face is bright with a wide smile as he talks with my mom. He asks us the name of that pastry I have ordered - he does not remember the name :  « Kolwoshkor ?  Oh yes ! Kolwoshkor! How could he have forgotten ?! » (ever since my childhood in Beirut it has been my favorite Lebanese pastry - and I love the name, which means literally : « eat-and-say-thank-you » ! (to your dad who has bought it for you little girl, to the chef who prepared it, or to God for this earthly divine pleasure, according to your age or belief ). 

My mom has stopped making conversation : she is now concentrated on her triple ice-cream - my mom has kept her child’s soul, like all happy people - of ‘echta (oriental cream), pistachio and rose. After a few minutes she raises her head and declares, glad and triumphantly :  « The best ice-cream in the world !!! »

Yes mom, you and I - and probably the other Lebanese clients in the restaurant today, and probably millions of Lebanese, living in Lebanon or abroad,  also consider Lebanese ice-cream, with these incredible flavours and colors who seem to step up from a Delacroix orientalist painting, as « the best of the world ! ». Very much like we consider Molokheyya, Kharouf Mahshi, and all other Lebanese dishes, as « the best food in the world » ! Italians would declare the same thing for their ice-cream and cuisine, French people as well, Chinese, etc. ! All love declarations are passionate and subjective…

 « Taste is the most atavical of all senses », says Swiss-French poet and writer Blaise Cendrars, who traveled a lot. My mom was born and raised in Egypt, among the Lebanese community, and she lived in Lebanon only 7 years, between our family’s exodus from Egypt and our departure for France. And yet she feels 100% Lebanese ! As for me, I have lived only (the same !) 7 years in Lebanon - as a baby and child - and yet I also feel 100% Lebanese…

That’s our « miracle » - and our strength, we women and men of the Lebanese diaspora : we feel 100% Lebanese, even after decades of living abroad. We are strongly attached to our Lebanese culture - and anthropologists tell us food is central to any cultural identity - even if we have totally adopted the manners and customs of another country. Very much like the Armenians, from what I can judge of my Armenian friends in France - and for the same reason : more people of that culture outside the country than inside. We are 15 million Lebanese and Lebanese descendents in the world.…

I love green plants, and I have a red hibiscus at home. I bought it small a couple of years ago, and it is now growing and flourishing, and offering me its beautiful flowers every year. I love flowers too, flowers are beautiful but do not last long : they have no roots… 

Hibiscus were grown in Antique times in Egypt, Korea and China, where they were found in many artistic representations. During the last centuries, plant-lovers and traders brought them to Europe, the Americas, Australia and Africa, and you now find them on all continents, of various colours, as indoor plants but also in gardens, private and public,  where they have become deeply-rooted trees - « native » plants in brief. 

We, Lebanese people, who have been travelling and settling abroad for the past 6,000 years, know deeply inside that our roots are our strength. Just like our beloved hibiscus, gardenias and all other flower plants of our homes and gardens. 

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