Coffee was the most prominent export of the port of Jeddah in the past… and documentation of public food during the last 100 years

A symposium entitled “Culinary History of Ports (Jeddah as an Example)” at the book fair in Jeddah, in which engineer Majid Al-Ahdal, Nawal Al-Khalawi, and Aziz Awliya participated, and moderated by Ahmed Al-Salami, reviewed the history of public food in the Kingdom and how to preserve it as a Saudi heritage.

Al-Ahdal stated that Jeddah throughout history was a transit station for many products, whether grains from the areas surrounding Jeddah, or spices that arrived from countries outside Saudi Arabia, most notably India.

Food documented throughout history

He explained: “The food documented throughout history is the restaurants of sultans and princes, and not the food of the common people, which was not documented until the last 100 years, when the food of the common people began to appear to the fore, after it had been confined to homes for years.”

He stated: “Coffee is the most prominent thing exported through Jeddah, as it used to come from the port of Mocha to the port of Jeddah, and from there it moved to Egyptian ports and then to Europe, as well as bagel almonds that used to come from the highlands of Taif and Al-Baha.”

The high taste of the Saudis

While Aziz Awliya stressed that we should not neglect our cultural components, and that we should be intolerant of them; “Because rooting for your culture confirms your existence, as it is not possible to approach another culture by dispensing with our original culture.”

He added: “Saudis in general have a very high taste, and that taste must be employed to consolidate our local culture and transfer it to the global level, especially since tourists are always looking for an experience that enriches them culturally, and we must always remember that the tourism economy is the first thing affected by crises, and the last thing to recover from their effects.” .

“Dabbah” to the world

For her part, Al-Khalawi stated that the “Khuffish Al-Dabba” dish is one of the dishes for which Al-Ula Governorate, northwest of the country, is famous, and she has begun to transfer it from local to international by introducing and adding some improvements to it, without conflicting with the type and quality of the basic dish.

She added: “This dish is known to be a winter dish, and the people of Al-Ula often consume it in the cold season, but I had the idea of ​​converting it from a winter product into a product that can be used in the summer, through some minor additions.”

The Jeddah Book Fair is the third exhibition held during this year 2024, organized by the Literature, Publishing and Translation Authority, as it comes in its current version after the Riyadh International Book Fair, which concluded its activities last October, and the Medina Fair, which brought down the curtain on its activities last August.