Desert Dining

Eat your heart out, Ottolenghi. On top of dramatic deserts and ancient sites, Jordan also boasts culinary traditions influenced by North Africa, the Middle East, Persia and the Med. So you can feast on everything from cheese-stuffed pastries to subterranean stews.

- Paula Marais

In the wilderness of Wadi Rum, the chance of enjoying a shower after exploring the magnificent sandstone formations in the heat of the day seemed unlikely. I was, after all, at a campsite in the middle of a desert. Nevertheless our hosts, Obied Naser Al-Amamreh and his brother, were set on attending to my family’s every need, including providing us with a shower cubicle carved into the rock and a blazing fire to gather around afterwards. We sat on mats encircling a taboon – a submerged oven covered in a huge mound of sand – in which a Bedouin delicacy called zarb was cooking. This expertly spiced dish is traditionally a mixture of meat, usually lamb or chicken, with onions, rice and carrots. It cooked slowly underground, under a bed of coals and layers of blankets that maintain an even heat. That night, Obied was cooking a vegetable stew in the same oven; a combination of potatoes, tomatoes and cauliflower.

As the food developed a subterranean simmer, we were privileged to be taken on a walk under the stars into the desert to be shown where Obied’s grandfather was buried. This may seem a strange interlude but it was more like a rite of passage – paying our respects to those who had come before us – before settling down to the communal meal.