In Pictures

Gallery|Arts and Culture

In Pictures: Syrian food finds Jordanian home

Beloved Syrian ice cream, shawerma and sweets shops have sprung up across Jordan to the delight of locals.

This wildly popular Syrian ice cream shop was founded in 1895 in the Hamidiyah Souq in the Old City of Damascus. In May 2013, Jordanian Musa Ababneh opened a branch in Amman.
By Elizabeth Whitman
Published On 12 Sep 2014

Save

Amman, Jordan – Abu Fadi slowly scrapes the nut-encrusted sides of the ice cream melting in front of him, as he lifts the utensil to his lips. “There’s nothing more delicious anywhere else in the world,” the 67-year-old Palestinian man says.

Abu Fadi first visited his favourite ice cream shop, Bakdash, in Damascus in 1975. But with the ongoing war in Syria, he no longer can. Fortunately for Abu Fadi and others, a Bakdash branch opened in neighbouring Jordan in May 2013, and Abu Fadi drops in every time he’s in Amman.

Bakdash is one of many Syrian brands to appear in Jordan during the war. Beloved confectioners, famous shawerma joints, and well-known juice stands have headed south, establishing themselves to the delight of locals and visitors alike.

For Jordan, a surge of Syrian investment has been a silver lining to the war in Syria. Over 600,000 Syrian refugees currently live in Jordan, which is struggling to cope with an economic crisis that pre-dated the Syrian war.

According to the Jordan Investment Board, Syrian companies invested $4.2m in Jordanin 2011. That amount skyrocketed to $161m in 2012. Over 5,000 Syrian companies are now up and running in Jordan, Jordanian economist Yusuf Mansur told Al Jazeera.

At least 15 Syrian food establishments have sprung up in the last year within just a few hundred metres along Amman’s traffic-clogged Medina Street, said a manager at Orange al-Sham, a Syrian juice shop.

The vast majority of managers and owners Al Jazeera spoke to said their businesses were thriving because of brand and name recognition. “Jordanians used to go to Syria just to have breakfast and eat ice cream and buy sweets and come back on a Friday,” Mansur said.

Advertisement
Bakdash(***)s Arabic ice cream contains mastic, a sticky resin that gives it great elasticity and the slight flavour of pine.
Advertisement
A block of frozen cream is dropped into a metal vat, then pounded with a giant wooden mallet until it becomes softer and more malleable.
The ice cream is then cut into chunks and rolled in chopped pistachios. Yarub Ababneh, whose father Musa owns the Amman shop, said people like to come here "because it reminds them of home".
Banana milk is one of the most popular juices in Syria, according to the manager of Orange al-Sham. In Syria, the juice stand was simply called "Orange"; the suffix was tacked on after it moved to Jordan.
Fatteh is another Syrian favourite: a porridge of bread chunks, yogurt, hummus, and crushed chickpeas, topped with oil and fried nuts.
Sameer Sahloul(***)s family owns the restaurant that bears their name and whose original branch opened in Damascus in 1943. They opened in Amman with a Jordanian partner at the beginning of 2014.
Advertisement
The upscale restaurant Naranj, whose original branch stood in Damascus(***) Old City, opened in Amman in May 2014.
The popular shawerma joint Djaj Anas originated in Damascus. Its first branch in Amman opened in mid-2013; since then, four more branches have been established in the capital.
An employee at Abou Arab Haider slices mabroomeh, a sweet roll of shredded phyllo pastry and chopped pistachios glued together with clarified butter. This branch opened in June 2013 on the southern outskirts of Amman, but Abou Arab Haider in Damascus dates back to 1950.
Nafeesah, a pastry shop well known in Syria, has opened three branches in Amman in the last year-and-a-half and branded itself as distinctly Syrian. "The authentic Shami taste," reads the Arabic on the package of cookies.