The Language of Baklava

Diana, who is now seven, and her mother and sisters are at home in the US. Bud has gone to Jordan to look for a job and a home for the family. Diana describes her mother’s calm, reassuring character and her intelligence and beauty. While Bud is away, Diana’s mother cooks American food: “Without Bud, we are living according to Mom’s rules” (31). This includes eating “Comforting Grilled Velveeta Sandwiches” (31), which Diana provides the recipe for.

After several weeks, the family flies to Jordan. Diana finds everything new and describes the block in Amman where they now live and its surroundings in detail. She becomes a member of a group of friendly local children, though she is unable to speak their language: “[T]his doesn’t matter because I know how to run” (33). She meets Hisham, a Jordanian boy her age, and they become close friends. Eventually Diana finds herself “speaking Bud’s language” (34), which her mother seems to disapprove of. She roams the neighborhood freely with the children, being welcomed by neighbors and eating their food.

The family has a Bedouin housekeeper named Munira; she often scolds the children and criticizes America and its food. At this, Diana’s Mom decides to cook pancakes, so she and the girls go to the “Big Market” to buy ingredients—an overwhelming experience. Watched by the interfering neighbors, Mom makes the improvised pancakes, which actually earn Munira’s praise: “Okay, well, now, that’s something a Bedouin could eat” (38). The neighbors join in and contribute their own foods to the “excellent pancake breakfast” (38).

Hisham and Diana are now so close that he suggests they get engaged. However, an English boy named Bennett moves into their building and Diana briefly becomes best friends with him. The boy’s father is a diplomat, and the uptight Bennett quotes his father’s rules: “Don’t talk to the natives” and “Don’t eat the native food” (41). Bennett is unusual, and the food he mentions, including crumpets and Horlicks, are exotic in Diana’s eyes; however, the biggest attraction is his red scooter. She forgets her Jordanian crew until Hisham leaves her some Jordanian cookies accompanied by a heart and his initial. This offering, as well as a comment by an elderly neighbor named Mrs. Haddadin that Bennett is “a bitter melon” (44), causes Diana some guilt.

One night the family drives to the Dead Sea, where they swim and play in the water. Diana and her Mom talk about what friendship means and what Bud is feeling about the return to Jordan.

Diana relates how her parents met. Bud, who had recently arrived in America, was a cleaner in a restaurant near Syracuse University, and on seeing Diana’s mother at a table, he impulsively got between her and her date and took her order. He then had to work out how to make the “grill chee-sanweesh” she wanted (47).

Back in the present, Diana starts playing with her old friends again. One day Hisham encounters Bennett in the courtyard; Bennett screams at Hisham to get out and then berates Diana, saying, “You don’t belong with them! You know that.” (49). Diana recalls that the French nuns’ school she attends forbids the use of Arabic, which it calls “the language of animals” (49). She reflects on her skin color for the first time and the fact that she is like neither Bennett nor Hisham. Nevertheless, Diana forgets Bennett and his scooter. One day Mrs. Haddadin tells her Bennett has left but has not taken his scooter. Diana ponders how it is possible to forget people and places and to leave the past behind: “What sort of person am I? Where are my loyalties? And who will I remember when I grow up?” (51). The next recipe is for “‘Forget Me Not’ Sambusik Cookies” ()—the ones that Hisham left for Diana.

Diana describes some of her favorite people in Jordan, including the traditional food sellers and Munira, to whom she is close. There is also Hamouda, an elderly Jordanian man who does odd jobs; “sweet-natured, sensitive” (54), he walks with a limp and is adored by the children. One day Diana takes her sisters for ice cream by herself, letting Hamouda nap rather than accompanying them as usual. Their destination is inside a busy traffic circle, which they reach safely. On trying to return, however, they struggle to cross the road until a distraught Hamouda rescues them. Diana echoes his cry of relief—“Alhumdullilah” (Praise be to God)—to the old man’s amazement. This anecdote is followed by the recipe for “Amazing Arabic Ice Cream” (57).

Diana feels she is forgetting America and becoming more Jordanian: “[I]t confuses me, because it seems like a kind of unbecoming or rebecoming” (58). Food is one important aspect of this process, though certain biscuits with a “hint of other places” and the hot chocolate served in a swanky hotel bring back memories of America (58). The recipe for “Sentimental Hot Chocolate" appears here (59).

Bud takes his family to visit the desert where his Bedouin family originated and where some relatives still live, including the unconventional Uncle Ramzi and the granduncle Sheikh Ali Alimunah, head of the tribe. Increasingly frustrated with Jordanian life, Bud says he has big questions to ask the sheikh. Munira and the family drive through the dry, windy landscape until they reach a group of tents, from which emerge many Bedouin woman full of curiosity about the family. Diana’s ability to speak some Arabic surprises them, given her pale appearance. There is a traditional meal, all of the tribe sitting outside together to eat mensaf (lamb and rice) with their hands; Diana and her family are the guests of honor. Diana’s mother remains somewhat aloof and on the edge as Diana and her daughter are fed to bursting. Full and drowsy, Diana sits with Munira, who says Diana could become her little girl and stay with her. The family then leaves, but Diana muses, “If I had stayed by Munira’s fire for one more moment, I might never have left at all” (68).

The chapter ends with the recipe for “Bedouin Mensaf Leben” (69).