Mansaf on a Friday Afternoon

Mansaf is the one dish Jordanians will argue about with strangers. We make it the long way, starting with jameed - the rock-hard dried sheep's yoghurt that Suha's cousin sends down from Karak twice a year. You break it, soak it, and then spend forty minutes whisking it into a sauce that has to be stirred in one direction and never left to catch. While that happens the lamb simmers, the shrak bread comes out, and pine nuts go into samneh until they are one second from burning. Then we eat it the way it is eaten here: standing around a single tray, right hand only, left hand behind your back, someone pushing meat at you long after you have said no. Leen will translate the arguments. Honestly, though: jameed is sour, salty and unmistakably sheep. Roughly one guest in six finds it too much, and we would rather say so now than watch you be polite at the tray. There is no meaningful vegetarian mansaf either - if that is you, book the maqluba day instead. We start at 10 and eat at about 2, and Jabal Amman on a Friday morning is shut, so do not plan errands around it.