Ammon News - Submitted by Salam El-Ghanim

Years ago when remote control was still science fiction, three Jordanian musketeers studying engineering in a distant university in the extreme northern part of the United States sat together, as they usually did, to discuss anything but their areas of study. The total numbers of Arab students in that university was only seven and that is mainly due to the extreme winter weather conditions in that part of the world. In that place, winter is like nothing seen anywhere else except maybe on Mars. If you dare to walk even with all your winter safety gear, you will still return within minutes with extraterrestrial features which may accompany you for the rest of your biological life.

I did not know that each hair on my face; be it in a mustache, an eye lash, or an eye brow, is capable of carrying ten times its weight of frozen ice, which I had to eventually defrost by sticking my head in the heater duct rather than rubbing it off as rubbing will break all the hairs turning me into a Martian with a hairless face. Needless to say, we managed to have a gathering every few days in order to cook something. That something was always Maqlooba (or ‘upside down’ as generally known); somehow I feel you are not surprised.

I do not know why, but every student who leaves Jordan to study abroad gets hooked to that dish. Through trial and error, we have acquired sufficient skills to cook edible Maqlooba. I and my friend Ghassan were adventurous enough to experiment with different dishes. Most of our attempts ended up in the nearby dumpster to avoid having the whole house filled with the burning smell. One day, I tried to feed our neighbor’s dog but he declined the offer with a snobbish look on his ugly face. I think American cats and dogs are too sophisticated to care for our failed cooking attempts. As a matter of fact, Ghassan told me on several occasions that he envies them for eating that fancy K9 canned food which smells way better than our cooking.

Anyway, after eating hundreds of Maqloobas, one afternoon Ghassan announced with great joy that he had his hands on some fresh (yes, fresh!) grape leaves which were brought from California by his visiting cousin, and that were going to have Dawali (stuffed grape leaves) for dinner. Being the chef of the three musketeers, I was approached for advice over the cooking recipe and method. I replied with full confidence that it was the easiest dish to do. Just mix some rice with minced meat along with a pinch of spices and salt, then roll that tempting mixture in the grape leaves then stack the stuffed leaves in a pot and add some water on top, and you are good to go. Shortly, the third musketeer suggested that we might as well stuff zucchini to make a proper Mahshi. We both admired his idea and rushed to the closest store to get three of the oversized zucchinis (that is the size we see in the west); having more than three will a space problem in the pot which had to also accommodate the Dawali.

All went according to plan until we tried rolling the leaves; for some mysterious reason they kept rolling back. With some effort, we managed to stack them tightly at the bottom of the pot, and placed the zucchinis on top to keep them pressed down. Everything went well until water started boiling, that is when the leaves started unloading their cargo and floating on the water’s surface. Ghassan started to panic, and the third musketeer almost died laughing. Being not only the Chef, but the wisest among the three, I turned off the fire then told them to calm down and to think in a logical and scientific way. We were prospect engineers after all. Within minutes we had two suggestions to consider: the first which was Ghassan’s involved wrapping each individual leaf with foil paper, and the second suggestion which was proposed by the third genius was to tie a thread around the stuffed leaves. I was the one to suggest maintaining the status quo by continuing the boiling process regardless of the consequences as the Dawali will taste the same be it rolled or unrolled. Of course, I was harshly criticized especially by Ghassan who was keen to eat proper Dawali; but I kept telling him to look on the bright side as the zucchinis which I had the honor of stuffing seemed to be doing great. Eventually, I was outvoted and both suggestions were adopted to solve the leaves’ problem, and the pot was covered and put on low heat.

After about an hour, we gradually uncovered the pot with intense anticipation to find out that the three zucchinis were busted open and the threaded leaves were held by a single thread from the middle in a semi-flower shape after having unloaded their stuffing into the water. The ones wrapped in aluminum foil which were at the bottom seemed ok until we tried opening some of them, that’s when we found out that the leaves became inseparable from the foil- you eat it or you leave it. Ghassan almost fainted, I started singing and the third genius started his usual giggles. Looking at Ghassan’s face I asked him whether he still has some leftovers from yesterday’s Maqlooba; he just responded with a scary side look.