14-Nov-04 - With Ramadan at a close it's Eid Mobarik to one and all!

As many of you will know, religion is taken very seriously in this part of the world. Very seriously. The Arabs here do a lot of praying - 5 times a day without fail! I still haven't gotten used to being in the middle of a cool conversation with someone who excuses them self because it's time to go and pray... Each to his own of course, as it's variety after all that makes the world such an interesting place to play.

As the topic of this page is the Eid (the Muslim Christmas), and this being a wholly religious event in this part of the globe, I'll take the time to explain a little background to this momentous event.

As many of you will recall, the day I got to Oman was the first day of Ramadan. What an experience this was! Ramadan is the Muslim holey MONTH which leads up to Eid (their Christmas). With the catholic religion, you go and give a confession to the priest every week or so and you're cleansed of all your dirty sins leaving a clean slate - ready to skip up to heaven and straight through the pearly gates without any questions. For the Muslims, they seem to save up a whole year of grotty sins before doing one big annual cleanup - Ramadan! In order to cleanse yourself of a whole year of ill deeds and thoughts, you have to abstain COMPLETELY from eating, drinking, smoking, swearing and other un-Allah-ly acts during daylight hours for ONE MONTH! That's right folks, no food, water, stinkie smokes or nasty words are legal (yes, that's right, it's actually against the law) in public during daylight hours for a whole month. To make sure everyone gets in on this big scrub-up, all shops and food outlets are closed throughout the whole country during daylight hours for the whole month. Your choice in this matter is clearly to observe the Ramadan, or to pretend you are.

And my thoughts on this big super-wash cycle? I say, bring on spin dry! I'm hungry, thirsty and desperate for a few expletives!

With the wash cycle officially coming to a close, it's time to prepare the Eid feast. Off I go to the rig the day before our feast, and on my way out of the camp I pass some site sheds which have three friendly looking sheep and a goat tethered to the outside of them. Hummmm... They weren't there yesterday??? In hind sight I can tell you that neither will they be tomorrow as their days are now numbered at zero!

Just so you don't think that the Indian influence has escaped this most sacred of feasts, here's the rig kitchen where the Indian chef is preparing the paratha bread for the festivities. By god I love this stuff! I literally go few days without my paratha.






As it turns out there are a few special treats which form the basis of the Omani Eid feast. Most important of all is shua which is very much like a Maori hungi. To make shua, you first light a big fire to heat up the ground. Then you dig a big hole in which to put some freshly slaughtered meat. And when I say freshly slaughtered, I mean it! The meat is still warm when it is put in the earth oven. We obviously had sheep and goat, but camel is also popular. The whole joints of meat are seasoned with salt, pepper, tamarind and a few other goodies, before being wrapped up in foil, then in some sort of a woven reed bags and placed in the hot pit. I think traditionally these pits were lined with hot rocks, but here at an oil rig camp, it was lined in a big steel drum. After the meat has been put into the underground oven, it is sealed tightly and covered with the hot earth and left for 24 hours to cook.

The next day I manage to lie and cheat my way out of the rig and back to the camp in time for the Eid lunch. This is the first day that the Omani's have been able to eat, drink, smoke or swear for a month - Ramadan is over! First treat off the rank is something which I have completely forgotten the name of. I know it might look like it came out of the loo, but luckily it didn't taste like it, especially because the Omani's all crowded around as I was handed this sumptuous appetiser. You see not many westerners join into their festivities and sample their fare, but as you all know I wouldn't miss it for quids! They'd have to fight me off with a stick to keep me off their food, and luckily for me sticks are few and far between in these parts.

Now back to the dish in question, which is pictured below. This is some sort of a heavy and thick grain based gruel or porridge with a thick boiled meat and tamarind sauce over the top. Not a recipe I'd beg for, but definitely eatable. Very heavy though. I had to sneak half of it into the bin because there was no way I would have been able to eat anything else if I'd finished it.


After meaty-bites mark one we all headed out to dig up lunch!












And back to camp we bring it - in a wheelbarrow!




We get to the back door of the kitchen and unload our tasty treasure. I'm of course handed the first tasty morsel to sample - so I took a photo of it! I might add that it was very tender.




Of all these packages of joints there was one that caught my eye. Glennie's called this one Ramadan the Goat. It turns out that the goat's head is quite a delicacy in this neck of the woods. That was not so surprising to me at all. The thing that threw me though was the fact that they cooked it without skinning it! Or shaving it for that matter! We used to have goats in the back yard and I know from experience that billy goats have a habit of pissing on themselves to improve their attraction to the nannies. Damn those billies stink! Anyway, all I could think of looking at this gaunt fury goat's head was that it was simmered in stale dusty sweat and piss.



If the truth be known I'm pretty sure it was actually a nanny goat and was unlikely to therefore covered in its own piss, but that didn't stop my mind going wild!