The Lebanese table offers a compelling blend of exotic ingredients, subtly combined. Its seasonal food choices and earthy flavors offer inspiration to professional chefs across the world. The epitome of the Mediterranean diet, Lebanese cuisine combines herbs, spices and fresh ingredients in an almost limitless array of robustly flavored dishes. From aromatic nibbles like almonds, to mains, and most of all, mezze, or “small plates”, the cuisine seems perfectly engineered for happiness at the table.
I’ve never been to Lebanon, so how do I know this? Well, chalk it up to a trip last year to Jordan, where Tom and I met an exuberant Lebanese entrepreneur named Hebah.
Everything you need, right here
We visited Jordan in the run-up to our wedding day, and had decided to buy our rings while on holiday there. After much to-ing and fro-ing, we found ourselves before the window display of a jewelry shop not far from our hotel.
The door opened, and an ample woman with a smile to match stepped onto the sidewalk and motioned us inside. “Here you will find everything you need!” she exclaimed, with a wag of an impressive head of hair.
We spent more than an hour in Hebah’s shop. In perfect English and with superb salesmanship, she provided us with exactly the rings we sought: elegant and simply styled, not at all like the lacy gold bangles fancied by locals.
One thing led to another, and then, as often happens, to food. “Have you tried fattoush, made the Lebanese way?” she asked, “real Lebanese food?”, then introduced us to her husband Ibrahim, born and raised in Amman. Before we knew it, we had been invited to dinner at their home. It would be a spread of mezze.
Do you know mezze?
We welcomed an opportunity to try mezze from a Lebanese home kitchen. On the appointed evening, Ibrahim picked us up at our hotel, and drove us down streets lined with elaborately decorated fences. We turned into a drive between columns topped with statues of Saint George, and I was soon in the kitchen helping make fattoush.
We sampled mezze to a running commentary from our hostess. Hebah sources much of the family’s food from Lebanon—from lemons to za’atar and sumac—“Everything is better in Lebanon!” she insisted. It was a refrain we would hear through our meal with Hebah and Ibrahim.
And more Lebanese treats await!
Our mezze evening closed with tea and fancy cakes from an Amman patisserie. Throughout, food was a principal topic of conversation, and we received culinary travel advice aplenty: “You should sometimes try a rosé from the Chateau Ksara!” “Order shish tawook with ‘toum’ when you go!” and “Don’t forget to try za’atar on slow-roasted lamb!” As she poured glasses of artisanal Lebanese rosé from from a bottle hand-painted with an image of St. George, Hebah offered a toast. “To Lebanon!”
In retrospect, we did not learn much about the finer points of Lebanese cuisine—that is for another time. But one thing is certain: an evening with this self-assured ambassador for Lebanon made us long for the real thing. Quite unexpectedly, while visiting Jordan’s capital, we spent an evening in Lebanon—no visa, no travel required.
