Hi, food nerds! We hope you enjoy this week's episode where Nick makes Omani food from Jokha Alharthi's 2010 novel (published in English in 2018) Celestial Bodies. The dishes this week include Omani halwa (jelly sweets), khubz ragtag (flatbread with honey and butter), chicken broth, and qahwa (coffee). Nick also shares a little bit from his research on Zanzibar, Oman, and the history of slavery and abolition in the Al Busaidi empire around the Indian Ocean.

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Sources:

For information on slavery in East Africa:

Alpers, E. (2003). Flight to freedom: Escape from slavery among bonded africans in the Indian Ocean world, c.1750–1962. Slavery and Abolition, 24(2), 51-68, DOI: 10.1080/01440390308559155

For information about Oman post-1975:

Hirji, Z. (2007). Relating Muscat to Mombasa: Spatial tropes in the kinship narratives of an extended family network in Oman. Anthropology of the Middle East, 2(1), 55-69.

For information on global dates markets and their impact on slavery in Oman:

Hopper, M. S. (2013). Slaves of one master: Globalization and the African diaspora in Arabia in the age of empire. In R. Harms, B.K Freamon, & D.W. Blight (Eds.), Indian Ocean slavery in the age of abolition (pp. 223-240). Yale University Press.

For information about the history of slavery in Omani and Zanzibari literature:

O’Dell, E. J. (2020). Yesterday is not gone: Memories of slavery in Zanzibar and Oman in memoirs, fiction, and film. Journal of Global Slavery, 5, 357-401.

Recipes:

Halwa - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=noXT3er74dU

Khubz Ragag - https://www.saveur.com/omani-egg-cheese-sandwich-recipe/