"My Lebanese Sandwich," by Maher Kassar and Ziad Halwani courtesy of Transit Beirut: New Writing + Images, edited by Malu Halasa and Roseanne Khalaf, (Saqi Books, 2004).

[Note from the Editor] This is one of the most memorable pieces of culinary reporting we’ve come across by non-food writers, guaranteed to make you hungry. Beirut natives abroad will long for a piece of home, while others will get a glimpse of the city’s life not often seen by outsiders. It’s a prime example of the creative nonfiction, short stories and photography characteristic of this unusual book from Saqi in London. -JE

Transit Beirut: New Writing and Images: your purchase benefits LCC programmingI'm in Moscow airport, waiting for the weekly flight back to Beirut. People know each other on this flight. There are the same familiar faces: businessmen, escort girls and pimps. While I'm having a snack before boarding - and happily saying good-bye to what seems to be staple Russian airport food: rye bread, mayonnaise and kalbasa sausage - I hear a voice in Arabic asking me: "Did you have fun in Russia?" Moussa is from Jounieh. He is one of the few tourists a travel agency sold an "all in" package deal to Russia, including food, hotel in Moscow, and guaranteed female entertainment. He seems totally disoriented and out of place. He asks for my help and follows me from the restaurant all the way through the long formalities of the Sheremetyevo airport. He tells me his holiday was a nightmare. Nothing was as promised. The three-star hotel had no hot water, and everything is so expensive in Moscow. And the food, my god the FOOD!!! The girls were all right but they were not allowed in the hotel after midnight. The third day, he fled to Minsk to some friend's place. There, he went to the local market, bought meat and vegetables, and cooked his own food. This at least allowed him to survive the rest of the trip. "All this time," he says, "I was dreaming of a falafel sandwich." Moussa went to Russia with a hunger for young, beautiful blondes; he came back with an even bigger hunger for falafel.

As he said goodbye and cheerfully thanked me, I felt a growing uneasiness. Something was not right about his story. Usually when you leave for a long period and miss the taste of the food of your country, you are—so to speak—home food-sick not fast food-sick. Why would he choose to miss the taste of falafel when he could pick from a plethora of succulent, typical Lebanese home cooked dishes? Vine-leaf rolls stuffed with rice and minced meat, and cooked with lamb's-tongue. Mloukhieh, a delicate green broth mixed with rice, chicken, lamb, toasted bread, lemon sauce and vinegar sauce. (This is my favorite because it is a "living" dish; you keep adding each of the ingredients, slightly changing the taste every time, keeping your plate full and alive for as long as you wish.) Or Samakhe harra, an oven-baked white fish with rich and spicy sesame oil sauce topped with grilled almonds and pine nuts. And these are the obvious ones. Did this man have no taste? He seemed to be one of us though; I mean the kind who cares a lot about food.

This encounter made me reflect on the particular affection the Lebanese have for their fast food. I started remembering all those happy faces biting into shawarma, satisfied and content. I remembered the expectation in their glittering eyes as the sandwich man adds the salad, the onion, the taratór [garlic sauce] and the pickles before finally wrapping the sandwich and solemnly handing it to them: "One shishtaouk, one!"

But, what makes it so special? Why does it have such a strong hold on the Lebanese heart—something to miss when you're abroad. After all, it is only fast food. And one wonders: do we experience the same pleasure when biting into a Big Mac?

Big, Fat and Ugly ... It's Fast Food All Right!

First things first. Let's identify our subject of interest: shawarma, falafel, shishtaouk, Armenian soujouk and bastirma, and bakery products such as manouché lahmbajin, ftaye and kaak.

The Lebanese Mother

In Lebanon it is no easy job to leave the family home and even more difficult to leave your mother’s cooking. Chances are you will be eating at the same table and at the same assigned place, the same fifteen to twenty traditional recipes—however wonderfully executed—for a good part of your life. The road to independence out of the household is long and full of ambushes.

It is not conceivable, for example, that you leave without being married. Your first mission is to find a proper bride from a respectable family. It is also highly recommended that she should be from the same religion since only religious marriages are recognized in our country. However, if you are a free spirit looking for further complications and unwilling to give up on the beautiful candidates that the other seventeen communities have to offer, you will have to plan (and pay for) a civil marriage abroad, usually in Cyprus. I could dig deep into the other solution that requires you or her to convert to the other belief. However, by the time both the religious authorities and the families are won over, and all the “details” are settled, you will both be eager to divorce.

Now let's say you have found someone. You will only be considered a proper party for marriage if you have the housing issue settled. Yes, you'd better own a house. Don’t think you're going to take our daughter and live on the streets… Of course, you can rent or buy a small apartment, but if you're a good man and you're as serious as you pretend to be, it is recommended that you build a house from scratch. You'd better find an architect, a contractor, bricks, concrete, land, and the cash. No wonder there's so little free space in Lebanon. Imagine if every male soul with a crush on someone finds a piece of land and starts laying bricks.

Many of my friends have tried to escape the whole process; and although most of them were definitely James Dean material, they were quite unsuccessful. You could try to go on your own, try to cut the umbilical cord prematurely, be a rebel and do the crazy thing. You might be broke for a while, fight to pay your rent and lead a frugal existence. But don’t worry, you will never be hungry. Mama will always be there for you. She will visit every week with stacks and stacks of Tupperware with enough home cooked food to feed you and all your friends until the day you decide to be a reasonable young boy again and come back home where you belong; whenever that day might be. Of course, you can try to hide and not disclose your new address. But Lebanon is a small country. She will find you.

If you follow all this advice, you have a chance to break free one day. You will decide where you prefer to sit at the table, what food you would like to eat, and who knows, you might even want to have a shot at cooking yourself. But nothing is guaranteed. If your parents have a little money, there’s a good chance they have started the construction of an upper floor for you and your future family. You can already see the unfinished, armed concrete pillars with the metal rods still sticking out. When more money comes in, they will raise the walls. When it's finished, you can finally get married, my son, and move upstairs.

Then, there will be two rival kitchens competing just to feed you. Your wife will get hell from your mother. First, she will pretend to teach her how to cook. She will give her the recipes just the way you’ve always liked them. Only for some reason, they will never turn out nearly as good. Too much salt, overcooked, not enough cinnamon. “Oh, you didn't add lemon, garlic and dried mint on the top? It's true … I forgot to tell you.” Over the years, missing elements of the recipes will be sparingly disclosed. The proportions will eventually correct themselves. But there will always be something missing. Finally, when she has made sure who was the best cook, and is now too tired for the kitchen duties, your mother will call for your wife: “Listen! I am going to tell you what is wrong with your coussa mehshe. It is …” The rest nobody else will hear. The secret has been passed on and she, your mother, has made sure that you will be fed the same food. FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE.