The next day after I first came to Bahrain, I attended hubby’s extended family dinner. It wasn’t a fancy one, just your normal get-together with Arabic food and not to forget the harees which I assumed everybody liked by the way they all flocked to it. To my non-Arabic friends, harees Is a traditional Arabic dish much like lugaw but a little dry, salty and infused with chicken or meat strips. I initially thought it is made of rice, it is actually made of wheat.
Anyway as we were eating I couldn’t help but noticed that plates and bowl comes in various shapes and designs, and only a few of them matches. I am accustomed to seeing food vessels in uniform designs at the dinner table. I found it rude to ask so I kept the oddity at the back of my mind.
Ramadan came and so I figured out the reason for the assortment of plates and bowls. Apparently during Ramadan, his Aunties cook a really large pot of harees. It is distributed to all family homes and other households in the freej. In turn, we receive several plates of food from them. Some plates comes back, some don’t. Some plates are returned, some plates stay. Every year, and including this year, the household buys a few plates for Ramadan, and trust me, I haven’t seen any of the plates reach my home. And every day of this Ramadan that hubby brings food from home, they all come in plates different from the ones I have dined and washed.
