Sunday, February 7, 2010

Libyan Food

I wanted to write about Libyan food forever, but not because i want to see or put recepies, I wanted to learn as much as possible about Libyan food.
As I discovered a love for cooking, I am interested in knowing more details about what ever I can get about libyan food.
But let me start from the beginning, as the Libyans are dividing themselves into groups according to their origin, Tripoli, Benghazi, Zwara, etc. also the food is different sometimes, and sometimes if you don't know someone from the other city you don't know certain types of food, especially if you are not interested in looking outside the box.
In Tripoli the main dishes are (kosksi, reshtat borma, keskas, dolma, mbatten, and many other dishes), then of course you have Bazeen and there is a fight among the different cities, which one does the best one. Then the so called Borma in Tripoli is called Mgataa in other places. Another nice dish is Ftat, el Jbalia are known for it. In Benghazi there is Mathroda and believe it or not, i have just heard about this dish 2 weeks ago, and i have never tried it before, but i will do my best to get it from somewhere. These were the main dishes, there are some other kinds of foods, like 3aseeda, Zomeeta, bseesa, Gsab (sa7leb).
The interesting thing is that the ingredients are almost the same, but there are small differences in the way of cooking amongst families. As you know, common thing here to say is Family xx does the mbaten in oil only, but family yy put it in the oven after frying it. It is nice and interesting, therefore i always like to ask several people, especially the older ones about their way of doing a dish. You can find some interesting information.
As i am trying to make most of this dishes in Canada, there are somethings missing there, and somethings taste differently, but i never miss taking my spices with me from here, i remember a post about the smell of libyan food, and yes, the food smell strongly, but!!!!! without them it is not even half as good. It is true that i don't like to leave the house while cooking, because i know that all my clothes are smelling, but at the same time i would never leave the hrarat out if i cook bosla. (It is the main ingredient for me)
I learned about these spices, their mixture, how they are done, and the other interesting thing i learned about was fish. For the first time in my life i went to see the fish market, so many kinds of fish, and the seller explains what they are, for what best to use them, he was a nice old man and you can see that he knows what he is speaking about. It was nice for me to see people not giving up their proficiency, it is important to have these people, their knowledge because they are a big part of our culture, it is not the cars and the houses. The smell of fresh fish, but as well the smell of fresh vegetables here is great. I cannot remember having the same smell in Canada, it is the smell of my childhood.
I will continue to discover everything about our food, as long as I am here, and I will try to teach my kids how to love our food as well, and by the way, I have heard about a libyan restaurant over there in Canada.
I would love to post pictures as well of some dishes and the fish market, but my camera is not working so i was not able to make any.

7 comments:

Dreamer said...

As you know I’m not practicing cooking so far, but it’s the same here agree; everything in Libya has its own taste and for me what I enjoy the most is knowing about everything, watch, observe, ask and I’m sure I’ll use this knowledge one day and practice it,but u know I’m still a good judge and I can know the different and which herb was used;)Fish market is one of my favorite places although it’s been just a year since I started visiting it , for me the first time was an adventure n then I loved it n I added it to my early morning Fridays activities and every Friday I learn about new fish or "Sea Creature ".but I still can tell my last visit was so special and I enjoyed it a lot;)

Lebeeya said...

Looking forward to the pictures and good luck on the cooking :-)

Umayma said...

Salam Alaykom. I wish you the best of good luck :) I am a biiig fan of libyan food, and i hope one day i can spend time in the kitchen with my mother-in-law there.... Now I just put anything together and try to make it look like the pics in internet, but i am not there yet...

Lebeeya said...

You need to update! I miss your posts!!

libyan said...

Hello lebeeya

thank you for still passing by my blog, and i know that i have to update, and i am willing, but the time, i don't know where it is going.
actually i am having some stress now, but i will update

Anonymous said...

Did you manage to find the libyan place?

harristracey said...

Honestly, I miss the Libyan food called KUSKUS or kushkush (sorry for the spelling, that is just how i heard it from my workmates). To describe it, it is a yellow colored small rice-like grains having a piece of pre-sauteed lamb on top of it.

In addition, the usual breakfast called Sharmoolah(kindly check on the spelling again). A salad mixture of tomatoes, cucumber, tuna and some sesame seed served together with bread(kubsa). The preparation is quite disgusting (squeezing ingredients all together with bare hands) but the taste is really delicious.

And Helwa for dessert. LOve it!