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Experience a unique home meal with Saudi Arabia's first female tour guide
Summary
Abir Abusulayman, Saudi Arabia's first female tour guide, shares her culinary heritage and personal stories through home-cooked meals
As a food and travel writer, I have been incredibly lucky to snag notoriously hard-to-land reservations at some of the world's most exceptional restaurants both celebrated and hidden gems. Yet, the most enchanting meals have often been at a local’s home, shared with warmth and personal stories. Recently, I had one of those moments in Saudi Arabia. This is no ordinary home but that of Abir Abusulayman who holds a unique place in history as Saudi Arabia's first female tour guide, a role previously reserved for men. Her groundbreaking work paved the way for numerous women to follow her lead. The country opened to nonreligious tourism only in 2019.
Much before Abusulayman (60 years) started showing tourists around the historical sights in Jeddah, she was an English teacher in the ministry of education. In 2011, she played a part in the effort to have Jeddah recognised on the UNESCO Heritage List. “There was nothing officially that a woman cannot be a licensed tour guide, so I started with my formal request to get one." Her fluency in English and French, proved to be a valuable asset. Things started to roll when she was asked by the government to lead some diplomatic guests. “When you walk on the streets everything is beautiful. But what about the inside of a Saudi home? People love to know how we live, what we eat and the dress we wear," says Abusulayman as she fusses around the dining table.
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Freshly baked bread is brought from the kitchen; stuffed gourds neatly coated with a tomato gravy suddenly appear out of nowhere, followed by a parade of steaming hot kababs. At the centre of it all is a huge platter of aromatic, spiced rice topped with chicken, something like a biryani. “We call it bukhari. The name comes from Bukhara a region in Uzbekistan," informs Abusulayman. How did it get to Saudi? “Saudi cuisine is influenced by pilgrims from all over the world who came here for Mecca and Medina. They brought with them their culture and cuisine. We are talking 1446 years ago. But we adapted the dishes and made them our own," explains Abusulayman. Bukhari uses a spice palette reminiscent of biryani. Tomato paste, cardamom, pepper and other spices play the main characters, but the hero is the rice. Long grained white rice which is always cooked in the broth from the poached chicken. This lends the rice a meaty, fatty heft. The chicken is then baked separately until golden. Bukhari is typically served in large communal platters meant for sharing. As young Saudi men leave home, learning to cook bukhari becomes an emotional rite of passage, a way to maintain a tangible link to their roots. Then there's mahshi, a delightful dish of stuffed vegetables, typically tomatoes and gourds. Abusulayman made a vegetarian version for me with rice, parsley, coriander and garlic, instead of the usual meat filling.
Meals at the matriarch’s home are a family affair. While the son pours us coffee from a long spouted dallah (Arabic coffee pot) the daughters rustle up the tabouleh and help us get into beautifully embroidered abayas for photos. “Food for us is all about togetherness. Growing up, Friday lunches were always at my grandmother’s home where all the siblings would get together and enjoy a home cooked meal. Now it is at my mother’s home." Proximity to the Red Sea means a lot of fish. “We love our fish which is very unique and found only in our ocean. For instance, the parrotfish everywhere is red. But ours is blue. We like it fried or cooked with tamarind, coriander or tahini. The rice we serve with fish is always brown. We call it sayadiya and it is cooked with the fish bone and topped with caramalised onions." A dish that is really close to Abir’s heart is the saleeg - creamy, savoury rice cooked in milk. It’s the Saudi version of the Italian risotto but topped with roast chicken!
A diplomat father meant a childhood dotted with travel. Abusulayman lived briefly in Mauritania, Senegal, Turkey, Algeria and Tunisia before she finally settled home in Saudi Arabia. “Education was always important for Saudi women. Both my mother and grandmother worked. But what has changed is the domains. Nowadays ladies are working in every field, not just in education, tourism or medicine but also in defense. My daughter-in-law is an architect. The media puts us in a certain box, perhaps because, until recently, they couldn’t visit to see the truth. The media was never nice to us, especially to Saudi ladies. They portrayed us as oppressed, as if we don’t have power. But that is not the case. Ever since my grandmother’s time, ladies have always been the decision makers in our homes. It could be because Saudi opened to non religious tourists only in 2019. Until then they couldn’t visit to see the truth," explains Abusulayman who now trains other tour guides.
For dessert there is spongy date cake made by her mother. “When I told my mother I was retiring early as a teacher to become a tour guide, she thought I was joking. She asked me, “So you will leave your office and walk the streets?". But who will tell these stories of our beautiful land and its history? I wish my father was alive to see this. He was a great story teller himself."
Dinner with Abir Abusulayman can be booked through her Instagram account @abir_abusulayman. Price per person starts at 250 Saudi Riyal ( ₹5800 approx).
Nivedita Jayaram Pawar is a Mumbai-based food writer.
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