Besides the unearthing of Artemis, which was a huge boon for everyone (especially for all of us up on Area A), I'd have to say that discovering the many delicious Middle Eastern foods was my next biggest surprise! I'm guessing, though it's probably safe to assume, that by the first time I ever traveled to Jordan everyone else who lived in any large U.S. city, and had any curiosity about foreign cuisine, had probably already been tipped off about the amazing dishes offered by local Middle Eastern restaurants, many of which are tucked away in some quaint corner of their favorite neighborhood. And while I was quick to learn where I might locate such restaurants once I returned home, up to this point food was just another aspect of Middle Eastern culture for which I had no clue! Remember, I grew up eating mostly southern cooking, a lot of fried meat and potatoes, as well as all the other typical American foods. (I will state for the record, however, that when I moved to California I learned to love both Mexican and Chinese cuisine, something we did not have in West Virginia at the time, at least not to my knowledge. I also tried Hungarian, German, and Vietnamese foods, thanks to my mother's boyfriends and husband). Still, experimenting with what I considered "exotic" foods when not in the company of a person encouraging me to do so was out of my range of experience. On the dig, the cooks who kept us fed tried their hardest to make anything American they knew how to make. I can't imagine that our Director encouraged them in this, as I'm not sure he cared about anything other than saving money, but somehow, out of their strong belief in being as hospitable to their "guests" as possible, combined, maybe, with their sense that not doing so could have led to a total revolt on the part of many of the college students who were away from home for the first time, and who were already trying to cope with so many other new experiences and hardships, we ended up eating a lot of cold French fries, served alongside our daily fare of chicken and rice! To any Jordanian who worked in the food industry, the idea was that the majority of young and middle age Americans lived mostly on hamburgers and French fries (don't know where on earth they could have gotten this notion from), but since beef was extremely expensive, having a juicy hamburger just wasn't going to happen (and while I'm not that big a fan of the burger, most afternoons I would have died for one!). In any case, our cooks were so happy to serve us French fries, that in their eagerness to make us all as content as possible, they made up a bunch almost every other day. Unfortunately, due to the sheer volume they had to cook, by the time they ended up on the table for our consumption, they were always hard and cold. The salt purchased for the dig was so old that it had no taste, and the ketchup, if you could call it that, was some Jordanian brand, so nobody got that excited, especially since they were sorely missing their much coveted Heinz or Hunt's, whichever was the case! So, each one of us just had to make due with that runny, semi-pastey red liquid they served, or else go without, and afterwards, if we could muster up any graciousness, thank the cooks profusely! At least they tried. I always felt sorry for them because, while they did have experience cooking in large volume, they had to cook for us from a very tiny school kitchen that had only one stove and one refrigerator, and had been constructed to feed only a small number of middle school children. One of the cooks did bring (from her own home) her own hot plate. (Thank god for an extra burner, right?) Another considerate thing they did was that whenever anybody had a birthday, they would try to bake an American cake, topped with icing (which I think someone actually brought one can of from the states). Our American deserts were also very foreign concepts to them, and so these cakes were never as good as we dreamed they might be (especially since most every American was suffering from chocolate withdrawals, another food staple not readily available in the whole region of the Middle East!), and while they were often barely even edible, we still thanked them for their efforts. You never wanted to be on the bad side of the cooks! J had told me how back in 1986 he and his buddy had taken the cook at ACOR (The American Center of Oriental Research, a center that housed visiting American archaeologists, located in Amman) bags of chocolate chips and brown sugar, neither of which were available in the grocery stores, even in Amman. The two of them were on a 90 day trip, part of which would include Syria and Israel, where they would use local bus transportation, before heading off to Abila for the dig. Needing to leave their dig luggage (and remember what that consisted of) at ACOR so that they would not have to haul it all around with them, and needing permission to leave it, they tried gaining favor with the cook. I'm sure J was hoping to get some chocolate chip cookies for himself out it as well. He had already worked on "friending" the cook two years earlier, and so basically had free reign of the kitchen (something I would be grateful for on this trip), and the cook knew how much J loved to eat (something all cooks appreciate), so the deal was sealed! For anybody traveling in a foreign land, let alone living under such conditions as we were at Abila, what you get to eat becomes of supreme importance! And while our cooks tried their hardest, and did manage to put on the table some excellent local dishes, they didn't compare to what we could get if we ventured out beyond the perimeters of our camp. It was to this end that J made certain that he took me into Irbid, the closest city to Abila (less than 10 miles away), at least once every Tuesday or Wednesday evening for dinner.
