From Omar Taher’s ‘Kohl and Cardamom’

This excerpt is from Chapter Two of Omar Taher’s popular and acclaimed Kohl and Cardamom, which was shortlisted for the Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature in 2021. It’s a title we’re recommending in this month’s Newsletter for Publishing Professionals; to find out more, sign up on Substack.

From Kohl and Cardamom

The Second Day

By Omar Taher

Translated by Mariam Moustafa

Neither a fish nor anything else.

My mother and grandmother had been at Um Samir’s house since early afternoon. Now it was getting close to eight, and I was starving.

Am I an animal?

Yes, a hungry animal.

An idea popped into my head, so I went into the living room. My dad was sitting there, holding Al Ahram newspaper. He was wearing his glasses and quietly smoking a cigarette. I told him: “I’m going to make eggs. Do you want some?” He thought about it for ten seconds, then put down his glasses. When he took out his cigarette, he said: “But don’t add too much salt.”

I entered the kitchen with joy. The sound of weeping mixed with the sound of the Holy Quran that streamed in from the cassette in Um Samir’s house, reaching our window through the building’s lightwell—but I was happy. Seconds ago, I had been the father, and my father the son! I felt his hunger and I offered to help, and the surprise was that he’d accepted. There was a chance to erase the effect of the orphanhood he’d carried since he was a boy. This small accomplishment also could help with my current challenge, of attending the concert, although I had full confidence that I would mess it up very soon. I knew myself well, which was why I booted the idea of the concert out of my mind and focused on this rare chance, which would allow me to tell this man so much. I decided to prepare the most beautiful plate of eggs for my father.

My father wasn’t a foodie, but he had a good taste.

He wasn’t like the other men of the family, in terms of his relationship with food. He would eat soundlessly, unlike one of my male relatives who would stuff food into both sides of his mouth, so that, when he chewed, it looked like two balloons were bulging out of his cheeks.

And he always set aside whatever was most delicious on his plate and put it on my mother’s. Every night, I’d see my mother worry that my father might forget—until he did it, and she smiled. This was the complete opposite of another of my male relatives, who was close to divorcing his wife because she cooked a pair of pigeons, one for each of them. He found this equality an insult.

I heard my father ask my mom not to close the kitchen door when she was frying or grilling. He told her: “It’s the smell of goodness.” Meanwhile, I had a relative who showered his family with takeout fava beans, falafel, and bissara, because he couldn’t tolerate the smell of cooking.

My dad’s only fault was that, at night, he would turn into a cat: he got up hungry and would eat whatever he could get his hands on. My mom stopped boiling the meat the night before, because my father would get up at dawn, half awake, and take the fork from the pot to pick at whatever was within reach. When my mom yelled at him, he’d say: “I was asleep.” She’d say: “And how’s that?! You toasted the bread and took the black pepper out of the cabinet!”

Of all the cuts of meat, my dad loved the neck and shank the most. He loved them pure and without any embellishments, just fried in the pan or with broth and garlic in the oven. He refused all other kinds of meat, whether biftek or kofta. He didn’t believe in pasta, and he considered the bechamel sauce nonsense. He believed that if the rice was well-cooked, the entire meal was good to go. He’d start his meal by adding a spoonful of rice to his plate and examining it, separating each grain from its neighbor, eating it slowly until a look would jump out of his eyes, indicating his level of excitement about the food.

During winter nights, I’d see my grandmother serve my father a bowl of red lentil soup with thick shamsi bread and a bucket of ghee. Each time the ghee spot faded off the soup’s surface, my grandma would add a new one.

He had fixed traditions: a clove of garlic in the morning before breakfast to cleanse the blood; tea after dinner; fruits after a midday nap; breakfast was four spoons of fava beans with a spoonful of oil and half a lemon.

He would buy the meat himself. Once, I went with him to the butcher store: he grabbed a chair and sat at the front of the store near the slaughtered cow that was hanging there and, every few moments, he’d point out a specific part to the butcher: “Bring this one … and this one.” I heard him say that the worst meal is the one of two fires: the fire of cooking and the fire of reheating. And the salad preparation was a right that he would never neglect.

I liked to have dinner at a table where he was at the head: he knew what part of the meat or chicken every person liked. He suggested solutions for poor appetite, and “clean your plate” was, for him, a life-or-death matter. I got pissed when the dinner table turned into a school, though.

He knew very well that his son had the stomach of a furious bull and there was no way to tame it, so the solution, according to him, was to refine the morals of that stomach’s owner.

I learned more at the dinner table than I learned at school: “The Middle School for Boys of the Martyr Abdel Monaam Reyad.” It was just annoying that he always started the lesson while I was enjoying a mix that I’d worked hard to prepare. He spoke, and so I had to stop chewing to listen. At that moment, I became a camel storing his food and listening to his father’s instructions:

“A hungry stomach has no ears, Abdallah. Eat only what you crave; when you just eat, the food eats you. A full stomach kills the heart. Leave the dinner table neither hungry nor full. Minimize your bites. Don’t make noises while you eat and don’t speak with your mouth full. Don’t look at other people’s plates. Don’t leave the dinner table before we all finish eating and don’t sit down at the table before we do. Don’t put your spoon in a communal dish. Don’t mix the contents of the dish before taking a spoonful. Chew your food well. Serve your guests.”

My father used to say: “The dinner table is a blessed space. Allah gives more to the one who generously hosts his guests. When you’re the guest, don’t ask the host to “give you” something; the only thing you can ask for, as a guest, is the direction for prayers.”

He kept repeating lines from a Caliph’s doctor, until I memorized them: “Don’t eat meat unless it’s from a young animal, and don’t eat it until it’s become tender. Don’t eat fruit unless it’s ripe. Only eat what you can chew. Eat whatever you want and then drink afterward, and if you drink don’t eat after. If you eat during the day, then sleep; if you eat at night, then walk up to a hundred steps.”

My father was a philosopher who didn’t get his chance in the vast arenas of life, so he decided to show off his skills in the small spaces that were available to him, such as the dinner table. I loved his theories, and they were a perpetual subject of contemplation. I often jotted them down in the margins of my notebooks while I was studying: “Zucchini feeds the heart. Lentil soup is full of nails. No meal can be re-served the next day except okra. Seafood must be accompanied by watermelon. Guava is the fruit of the poor. Each bite knows its eater. There is nothing to gain from life except for the few bites that we enjoy.”

Once, he took me aside and gave me a private lesson, saying: “You eat like a glutton and miss out on so many pleasures:

“The pleasure of looking and enjoying the food and its colors; the city women who cut their hands after gazing on the beauty of prophet Joseph did so because he was like a finger-licking meal for their eyes.

“The pleasure of smell. The aroma of food is like the smell of good news. It’s like the good signs that you get when you read your horoscope in the newspaper every day. It’s similar to good news that’s on its way to you, because the joy of waiting for this news is greater than the joy of receiving it; it’s free excitement, like the excitement of the minutes just before an important football match.

“The pleasure of chewing. Put a grain of rice on your tongue, chew it, spread the flour across every point inside your mouth, and you will feel its taste everywhere in your mouth. God wants you to enjoy food to the fullest, which is why he placed a million nerve cells on each millimeter on and around your tongue. Each of these cells is capable of tasting, so why deprive these cells and yourself of this pleasure? Tasting is a great pleasure, and savoring is a form of worship.

“The pleasure of swallowing. With this, you send a gift to your beloved stomach. Slow down and give it a chance to observe this gift. Be like the lover who puts the box in front of his beloved lady and shows her its contents piece by piece, so that, with each piece, she gets happy all over again. Don’t treat your stomach like a well that you want to quickly fill. Give it a chance to be happy, and, believe me, you’ll be happy, too.”

My dad said that burping is a pleasure. It’s a thank-you note from your stomach. Out of all the gifts you sent its way, it reminds you that a particular gift had a special taste, and it sends you back a little bit of it.

My dad wasn’t just spouting theories. He applied every lesson in real life. Only one thing always made me wonder: my father was a great host, but after each gathering that we hosted, he had harsh words for my mother. I thought about that a lot until I realized it was from jealousy.

My mother’s skills always amazed her guests. From time the smells started coming from the kitchen until the moment the guests left, my mother would collect praise and compliments. A relative once told her, while under the euphoric spell of her food: “Your cooking is one of the signs of God’s existence.”

I used to watch my father as he followed the gazes of appreciation—from both the young and the old men of our family—surrounding his wife. And my dad, crazy in love, would get hurt when he saw the blatant warmth in people’s eyes, following my mom wherever she went. His anger would be fueled until the guests left, and then he would burst into a rage at the slightest provocation. Once, I heard him burst into a fury because there were no banana slices on top of the jello! By that time, my mom’s program on any gathering day was well-known: the guests leave, she takes a hot shower, has a cup of black tea with mint in bed, and sleeps till next morning.

Regardless, feasts always took place in our house.

Once, when I heard him speak about “bread and salt,” I asked him why these two elements symbolize devotion. He replied that they’re essential, and there is no disagreement about them. No one on the planet can live without bread and salt. The darkness of the bread and the whiteness of the salt are two colors that summarize the experience of life: one day is dark and the next is bright. He told me it’s a firm oath and the first criterion of humanity. He told me the story of one of the Caliphs who captured a number of his enemy’s soldiers as hostages and ordered their execution. One of them asked the Caliph not to kill them while they were hungry and thirsty, so he ordered food and water for them. After they ate and drank, they told him: “Now, we have a covenant and a compact,” so he released them.

My father advised me to be careful when choosing the persons for whom I would accept the responsibility of bread and salt, because only true men can handle its consequences with loyalty. At the heart of the idea of bread and salt is loyalty and forgiveness. Treason is to drop bread and salt from your plans without taking anyone else into account, even if you have your reasons.

I had thrown a big spoonful of green ghee into the pan, and, with the first crackling sound, I added a half-block of after I broke it into small pieces. I let it absorb the ghee, and then I broke four eggs on top of it. I steered the mix until it became a cohesive structure. I took it off the stove before it lost its flexibility and brightness. A pinch of black pepper, then a pinch of salt and cumin. I heated four loaves of bread, and I placed the tray in front of my father. I didn’t forget the pickled turnips that my grandma had preserved.

My father was hungry, and I was, too; but the light shiver that I felt all through my body when my dad smiled after the first bite made me forget my hunger. This orphan child looked happy, and now I could smell the aroma of his enjoyment. He said something I couldn’t hear; I was so deep into analyzing my feelings, far from all the inhabitants of this house. We sat, me and this man, signing the pledge of “bread and salt.”

Omar Taher is a novelist, scriptwriter, songwriter, poet, and columnist, born in 1975 in Sohag, Upper Egypt. He is immersed in Egyptian culture, and his work spotlights Egyptian society and the ordinary life of Egyptians in all its details. He is very popular among young readers thanks to his straightforward writing style. His best-known books include Egyptian Makers parts 1 & part 2 (صنايعية مصر), Songs on the Radio (إذاعة الأغاني ) and a number of satirical books and poetry collections. He won the Best Author prize in 2015 from Youth Magazine (مجلة الشباب), one of Egypt’s most popular magazines for young readers. Kohl and Cardamom was shortlisted for the 2021 Naguib Mahfouz Medal.

Mariam Moustafa is an Egyptian American with a passion for languages and translation. After graduating from Fordham University with a double major in French Studies and Communication, Mariam started her career by translating into Arabic The Bilingual Revolution: The Future of Education is in Two Languages, a book by the Education Attaché at the French Embassy and the author Fabrice Jaumont. In 2022, Mariam completed her Master’s degree in Translation & Interpreting from NYU SPS, specializing in literary translation. She is the translator of the first five letters of The Letters of Hiragy al-Qot, published in Asymptote.