Today I want to write about food in Yemen… since food takes up a very important part in my life, I was a little worried about my stay in Yemen. But in the end, I am very happy here, in some respects even much happier than in Syria, where eating out was always a little difficult because they only serve meat as main dishes (and only the cold starters are vegetarian).

Here, I get breakfast and lunch in the Markaz (center). In the morning, there is usually some bread (that the Indians brought here, who probably copied it from the British… it is called ‘ruti,’ like in India), jam, yogurt, tea, Yemeni coffee (which is actually made out of the shells of the coffee bean, and not of the bean itself. Same same but different to the tea they serve here). In addition, there is often some bean-stuff, very yummy. For lunch, the ‘menue’ changes often… sometimes, there are Western dishes, sometimes a mixture of Yemeni and Middle Eastern dishes (so I already had Fatoush once, my favorite salad). A few days before the menue caused some general cheers and my greatest despair because hamburgers and fries were dish of the day… oh yeah, some mid-westerners were so tremendously happy because finally they could eat something they usually eat (I am not being sarcastic here… that’s what they said themselves!) In general, people eat a lot of legumes here, especially lentils and small beans. This is also what I eat in the evening, when I am out in town with my friends since I haven’t seen vegetables in a restaurant yet. Usually, they serve the food with an enormous flatbread … oh, this is the best part of it. They bake it in a clay oven and it is simply delicious.