A Lebanese Wedding – The Food

The Food. OMG. The Food.

The custom at Lebanese weddings it seems, is that when the bride & groom enter the hall, some initial dancing and music takes place, with the happy couple leading the way. The crowd join in and the atmosphere is immediately electric. And on this particular occasion, the entry of the bride and groom was preceded by a flash mob of eight male dancers, each dressed like the male wedding guests for reasons of camouflage, who just appeared as random guests out of the crowd onto the dancefloor, each with incredible dance moves. MB will feature a photo or two of them in a follow-on post. This dancing & music continues for 15 to 20 minutes, then it’s open season on the food tables!

On seeing the vast array of delicious goodies, MB sang a few lines of ‘Food, Glorious Food (hot sausage & mustard)’ and gave thanks to St Patrick and St Charbel (him a Lebanese) for landing MB in such a state of culinary ecstasy. And who is this St Charbel? – many Irish and other followers will be asking. Well lads – he is a famous Saint – in Lebanon (hahahaha!). For sure he is not a universal, intergalactic all-powerful Saint like the Irish St Patrick. But the Lebanese love the guy, so as MB was in Lebanon, he just wanted to show his hosts (& the local Saint) a little respect. When in Rome………!

As hungry wedding-goers launched themselves at the buffet tables, hundreds (it seemed) of chefs carved and cut, spooned and sliced the vast food mountain of every imaginable food-type to feed the ravenous hoards. The desert tables (yes – tables!) were awesome – they contained 7 or 8 miniature wedding cakes, each a three-tier replica of the real (much bigger) one. The table of Lebanese sweets was brought in from the most famous bakery in Lebanon- Al Halab bakery in Tripoli, which MB had the pleasure of visiting the following days for a further helping of goodies. MB gorged himself like any good Irishman would do in such a situation, and totally enjoyed the gorging!

As MB now looks at these pics, the tastes and aromas come flooding back, and MB is transported in his head back to the banks of Nahr El Kalb, munching and munching and munching!