Roleplaying flavour and guide to Iraq in 2011

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by combatmedic

http://www.amazon.com/Delights-Garde.../dp/1845534573

I own this book. It's good stuff, and I was able to make food that very much resembled food I ate in Iraq by following the recipes.
My wife likes it, too.

Very nice.

I've noticed local fish delicacies that haven't really made the jump to Westernised fast food.

Anything else I should make a point of including in the Iraqi cuisine scene?

[combatmedic]

Originally Posted by Icelander

Very nice.

I've noticed local fish delicacies that haven't really made the jump to Westernised fast food.

Anything else I should make a point of including in the Iraqi cuisine scene?

Well, unless perhaps the southerners do it differently--and I don't think they do---people should be drinking a lot of sweet, warm/hot tea. In what look like shot glasses as well as cups.
Coffee is consumed, but I didn't get the impression it was as common.

I knew a lot of people over there who liked what I call doogh (that's a Persian term). Turks and Arabs drink it too. Various names exist, but it's pretty similar all over the region: yoghurt water with cucumber, mint, or dill. You drink it cold. I prefer the carbonated kind. Sour milk soda goodness!
This is very good to drink in the summer heat.

Oh, and I realize smokes aren't food, but Sumer brand cigarettes have a golden harp on the blue box, IIRC. I don't smoke, so I can't tell you if they were any good. I think Business Club might have been a local or regional brand, too. The Sumer were made in Iraq, I think. Dunno if this would be accurate as of 2011.

[combatmedic]

http://www.oneiraqidinar.com/product...er-cigarettes/

Looks like they are making a comeback.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by combatmedic

http://www.oneiraqidinar.com/product...er-cigarettes/

Looks like they are making a comeback.

For, eh, no reason in particular, Sumer brand cigarettes sound like a brilliant little touch.

I mean, it's not as if the archeological excavation of some Sumer-era ruins are significant in the campaign or that villains will in any way be connected to proto-Sumerian dark secrets of prehistory.

And it's not as if sympathetic and symbolic magic is a factor in the campaign.

Not at all.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by combatmedic

Well, unless perhaps the southerners do it differently--and I don't think they do---people should be drinking a lot of sweet, warm/hot tea. In what look like shot glasses as well as cups.
Coffee is consumed, but I didn't get the impression it was as common.

They call this chai, as sir_pudding pointed out upthread, and will offer it to anyone, anywhere.

Any ceremony or quirks related to serving or consuming it that I ought to incorporate?

Originally Posted by combatmedic

I knew a lot of people over there who liked what I call doogh (that's a Persian term). Turks and Arabs drink it too. Various names exist, but it's pretty similar all over the region: yoghurt water with cucumber, mint, or dill. You drink it cold. I prefer the carbonated kind. Sour milk soda goodness!
This is very good to drink in the summer heat.

It sounds very similar to Indian lassi, which you can get here. Not my thing, but okay with spicy food.

Where do people buy their beverages or snacks? An open-air stand with primitive wooden furnishings? An open-air stand of a more advanced design? A convenience store? A supermarket?

Are most of them selling food as well or are there like tobacco stands?

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by combatmedic

Oh, and I realize smokes aren't food, but Sumer brand cigarettes have a golden harp on the blue box, IIRC. I don't smoke, so I can't tell you if they were any good. I think Business Club might have been a local or regional brand, too. The Sumer were made in Iraq, I think. Dunno if this would be accurate as of 2011.

They also put nicotine in some brands of energy drinks sold there.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Icelander

Where do people buy their beverages or snacks? An open-air stand with primitive wooden furnishings? An open-air stand of a more advanced design? A convenience store? A supermarket?

If it is like the west, mostly it's in small convenience stores.

[combatmedic]

Originally Posted by Icelander

They call this chai, as sir_pudding pointed out upthread, and will offer it to anyone, anywhere.

Of course. Chai means tea. It, or a very similar word, means the same in several languages.

This is why I get weirded out when I hear Americans talking about ''chai tea" (referring to the milky tea some Indians like to drink)

That's ''tea-tea", which makes no sense.

[combatmedic]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

They also put nicotine in some brands of energy drinks sold there.

I don't think I ever tried an Iraqi energy drink.

I do remember when somebody (I think the Turks?) started making an ''Islamic Cola" and marketing it across the region. It tasted like malted battery acid, as somebody whose name I can't recall once described both Coke and Pepsi.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by combatmedic

This is why I get weirded out when I hear Americans talking about ''chai tea" (referring to the milky tea some Indians like to drink)

It comes from calling spiced Indian tea (usually with cloves and ginger) "Spiced Chai" and then cutting off the "Spiced". My first experience with "spiced chai" was the spiced-with-fresh-herbs-while-you-wait black tea (that I drank black) served by the Coffee Shop of the Mullah Rasmudin's Donkey (aka Mullah's) at SoCal Renaissance Faire. So both the milky Oregon Chai and the Iraqi black tea with honey seem wrong to me.

At any rate it was a bit odd at first, until I remembered what "chai" means. Most American servicemen aren't as erudite as I.

The falafel thing, I didn't know, until I experienced it though.