Susanne Sterzenbach:“Cutlery is only here for foreigners.”

The food here is also wonderful, a delicious mixture of Oriental and Indian cuisine. There is mezze, an assortment of appetisers we are familiar from Jordan and Lebanon, and there are huge fish from the Arabian Sea.

In Yemen, every meal includes a spicy stew with beans and either lamb or chicken, served in a fire-blackened clay pot.
There are soups, prawns, potatoes mixed with meat cut into small pieces, all served with a variety of dips with spicy yogurt or cheese. There is flatbread made from wheat or corn, and a very special type of bread made with dates.

One tears off pieces of the flatbread and uses them to gather up meat and vegetables from the plate. Cutlery is only here for foreigners. Spills land directly on a plastic tablecloth that is disposed of afterwards.

 

 

 

 

 

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Susanne Sterzenbach
Susanne Sterzenbach studied translating in Mainz and Munich. In 2001 she was correspondent for the German TV-Channel ARD in North-Africa. 2004 she returned to Stuttgart where she works for the TV-Channels SWR and ARD.

 

 

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