Spice Souq Qatar with the lovely ladies from AWAQ
What a great morning I had a few weeks back when I was invited by Elizabeth Yaw, President of the American Women’s Association of Qatar (AWAQ as I like to call them), to join with her and her lovely ladies (members) for a tour of one of Doha’s foodie hot tourist spots – Souq Waqif.
I hear you ask what is Souq Waqif and what does this magical place mean to Qatar?
Souq Waqif – translate as STANDING MARKET. According to historians in Qatar, the Doha Souq dates back around 250 years and was called “Souq Waqif” because the sellers used to stand at the entrances to display their wares like spices, cumin, cinnamon, fish, clothes and wood.
Souq Waqif was a gathering place, a very popular area where Bedouins and locals would come together to trade a variety of goods, primarily livestock goods. Sadly though with the boom in prosperity in the 1990s and the incoming of sophisticated shopping malls, the Souq fell in decline and in 2003, most of it was destroyed in a fire in 2006. Wonderfully, the Royal family of Qatar decreed that this icon had to be rebuilt and in its exact form, so today our Souq is a complete replica and still captures the spirit and magic of this ancient, traditional Gulf way of shopping.
The ladies loved the experience and I thoroughly enjoyed discussing the spices and herbs available. Some of these spices and herbs are familiar but other are really unknown to the amateur cook.
Saffron of course can be found in abundance, alongside cumin, cardamon and Zaater. I also had the opportunity to talk about a few of my recipes which feature many of these spices and herbs. If you are interested please check out the recipes below (only a click away).
JOTK recipes
And of course, the pictures below tell the story……..
