W is for Warburtons
I grew up for a quick minute of my childhood in the Middle East. Between the ages of 7 and 10, I lived in Abu Dhabi and from what my poor memory can recall, it was a rich and delicious experience. During these years, I was introduced to many new foods, expanding my palette and shaping it into a version of what it is today.
We had school hours to accommodate the heat, meaning that we started and finished early. Afternoons were spent swimming, baking in the sun, and baking in the kitchen. We lived in a gated compound, as most expats did, and this mustered a very large community spirit. We had moved from a quiet, English, possibly emotionally-stunted village to family-oriented fraternity/sorority. Most weekends, there was a birthday party in the communal pool and everyone was invited, Easter egg hunts in the Spring, and Christmas decorations around the clubhouse in Winter. The recollection of these parties brings me to my first edible memory — a Baskin-Robbins Ice Cream Cake. These cakes were a staple and a delicacy for any festivity and I can still taste the fakeness of the sweet, sticky chocolate sauce mixed with chlorine as we would shove our little mouths with cold, sugary delights directly from the pool. The classic was the Oreo cake, a vanilla sponge, with white frosting, fudgey piping and stuffed with crunchy Oreo pieces. A real treat! I can’t imagine why our parents would be so willing to feed us with this cake as I can only fear the sugar rush that we all experienced after gorging the frozen dessert.
My second edible memory is that of zaatar bread from Spinneys supermarket. Most supermarkets that we frequented were inside shopping malls or strange retail complexes. The Spinneys was like this, in the same building as the shop we would buy our school uniform from. This bread that they sold, however, was far from ordinary. A flat Arabic bread generously spread with zaatar paste and sprinkled with white sesame seeds.
Zaatar: A Middle-Eastern spice blend composed of thyme, sumac, and sesame seeds.
If you hit the bakery counter at just the right time, this soft treat would be handed over still warm, freshly plucked from the oven behind. I am trying to remember what exactly we did with this bread, whether we served it with fresh salads, or dunked in hummus. But, I don’t think it ever lasted longer than the walk from the till to the car, roughly torn into pieces to share between us and scoffed down without a second thought.
My third edible memory is very timely, as we currently are in the middle of the period of Ramadan. As an Islamic country, the UAE abided by very strict rules for Ramadan. As for those of us who were not partaking, it was still forbidden to be eating outside during the daylight hours. I vividly remember a friend of my mum’s being pulled over for eating a carrot whilst driving in her car, and she had to convince the police office that she was just miming a microphone and singing along to the radio. At school, our friends who were observing the fast would take a separate break time, whilst we ate our packed lunches elsewhere. The part that I remember most fondly, however, was the Iftar. This is the fast-breaking meal, typically starting with a glass of water and a date, followed by prayer, and then a more substantial meal afterwards. Some of the big hotels would put on a big Iftar spread for everyone to attend and break bread together and this style of meal is one of my favourites. As someone who revels in gluttony, a buffet is a little piece of heaven. The opportunity to try all of the dishes in small quantities (or not so small) and to go back again and again for more! It was at one of these Iftar celebrations that I first ate a shawarma. A spiced meat cooked on a rotisserie and served hot in a pita with pickles and garlic sauce. Quite simply, a delicious kebab, but I recall watching the chicken being sliced off and falling into the awaiting bread and never being so excited for a mouthful of food.
My fourth memory is one that makes me laugh even now when I think about how precocious a child I was. We had a wealth of delicious food at our fingertips whilst living in Abu Dhabi, the aforementioned bakeries full of treats, restaurants introducing us to exciting new palettes, but this didn’t stop me from missing certain foods from England. One of the main things that I missed, strangely enough, was plain white bread, specifically the blue packet of Warburtons. Despite the delicious zaatar bread and pitas, I would often crave a simple white piece of toast with butter and jam. This bread did not exist in the Middle East and I do recall having tantrums about not having this bread available to me, so much so that when we had visitors from the UK, my mum would ask them, embarrassedly, to bring her annoying daughter a loaf of white bread. I would await their arrival with a rumbling tummy, and upon delivery tear open the bag and gobble three or four slices plain and un-toasted. Ecstasy! I have since grown out of this quite terrifying greed for Warburtons and I haven’t eaten it in a little while, but I think that I would taste would still ignite the piggy child inside me.
Shopping list for you
New season of Succession is out and I cannot wait. I am prone to hyperbole but it is the BEST series I have ever watched.
I found an Instagram account of this little Italian boy and it makes me want to pick up Italian again, so I can understand his sweet little outbursts.
On an Italian theme, I went to Florence a few weeks ago and have a handful of recommendations but sopratutto, a new found love for un cornetto al pistacchio. There is something about the colour of green that I love endlessly.
Self-promo warning: My interview with Erchen Chang from BAO London is available now in print at semaine.com and in various locations in London, Paris, NY and San Francisco.
Hilarious signage at a sandwich kiosk that feels like a metaphor for life.
That zataar bread sounds right up my street !!
Oh lovely Abu Dhabi Tori. Great memories of my visits to you😁😘