Taking the Kids: A unique way to honor moms, aunts and grandmothers

When Maria Haddad wanted to honor her grandmothers’ cooking lessons, she didn’t figure on being ahead of international travel trends.

Fifteen years ago, Haddad, then just 23, and her sisters, decided to honor their memories – and those of other women in the family who had shared recipes – by starting a cooking school in what had been one of the grandmother’s homes in a picturesque Amman, Jordan, neighborhood. Welcome to Beit Sitti, which translates from Arabic to “My Grandmother’s Home.” (There is also a terrific Beit Sitti cookbook.)

“Cooking together breaks so many barriers,” Haddad explained after we had finished our lesson and eaten the delicious dishes we had learned to prepare. “You are cooking together so at least you have one thing in common. …The idea has always been to create a platform to meet local women … so they can tell you about their lives and you can tell them about yours,” Haddad said, “To celebrate women who have carried their culture through their dishes down through generations with every recipe telling a story of our land and heritage.”

“Everyone thinks it is normal for women to cook,” she continued. “We want to show how much effort and creativity that requires. Arab moms focus on food as a way to show their love.”

I’d say that’s true in many cultures. And these days, growing numbers of travelers are seeking that entré to a new culture with cooking lessons and food tours, whether in a new city, a resort or even on cruise ships (there were nearly daily cooking demonstrations as our Hurtigruten ship sailed up the Norwegian coast in search of the Northern Lights; Holland America, Celebrity, Virgin Voyages and Regent Seven Seas are among the cruise lines that offer cooking classes and culinary oriented shore excursions. (We spent a memorable day learning to make paella on a shore excursion in Spain while we were sailing on a Regent ship.)

River cruises now have sailings that have a special focus on food, wine and beer, including an Adventures by Disney river cruise celebrating Octoberfest, AmaWaterways wine cruises, Uniworld (they have special Generations family cruises) and Avalon Waterways culinary cruises.

(You can Google food tours or cooking classes in the city you are visiting or try Airbnb Experiences or platforms like TInggly, Tours By Locals (try one instead of a shore excursion from a cruise line) or Context Travel. (How about a market tour and cooking class with a local chef in Florence?) Your hotel concierge can be a good resource too.

Haddad, now a mom of three, also noted that besides the women who teach, the school has provided opportunities for many local women to help support their families as they create homemade pantry products – everything from stock mix to spice mixes, bitter orange cordial, date molasses and more. This is especially important right now as the Gaza war has decimated the important tourism industry here that employs so many people, though Jordan is entirely safe to visit, we found. While close to Gaza and other Middle East hot spots, there is no war here.

Jordan is a “quiet home surrounded by lively neighbors,” one local guide said. “People don’t realize how Jordan is so different from our neighbors,” he added.

We were about to start an Abercrombie & Kent tour in Jordan and Egypt and I knew we would spend much of our time exploring ancient sites. That’s why I sought something different in Amman, and was lucky the Four Seasons Hotel Amman where we were staying, could arrange this experience for us, and afterwards, a visit to the Philadelphia Industry & Trading Co, a popular local spice shop where my husband stocked up— enough to give spices and recipes to appreciative family and friends when we got home. (Beit Sitti classes and meals start at under $50 USD, a bargain, I thought.)

While pounding dough into circles to make Arabic bread, we learned that the first loaf of bread was made 14,000 years ago in Jordan when people mixed wild wheat and barley with ground plant roots, added water and baked it.

Bread here is often filled with different foods, including hummus, cheese, tomatoes, olive oil or fava beans, with the bread serving as the fork and spoon. Jordanians share plates, we learned, communally dipping their bread into eggplant and beet dips and hummus, making the food symbolic of a connection and community.

As my husband Andy chopped eggplant, tomatoes and cucumber, stirred tahini and spices into dishes and pounded little rounds of dough into Arabic bread, I learned that one of our cooking teachers, Um Rween, immigrated from Iraq some 30 years ago when she married a Jordanian. Our other teacher, Um Muhamad, came from Egypt 25 years ago. (Here, women take their firstborn’s name with “um” in front of it which means “mother of.”

Haddad explained that Jordanian cuisine comes from the mix of cultures here. As those from Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Egypt have all made their home here. Her cooking, she said, was influenced by her Lebanese grandmother, her Palestinian aunt and others.

We learned to make Maghluba, a chicken and rice dish, and Mutabal, a roasted eggplant dip with tahini, yoghurt and falafel, delectable fried balls of chickpeas with onions, garlic, parsley, and spices. The dessert was Qatayef, a crispy, sweet pancake concoction popular during Ramadan.

I loved that later on in our Abercrombie & Kent tour, I was able to identify unfamiliar dishes on the hotel buffets and menus.

Certainly you don’t want to miss the great sites in Jordan, like the ancient city of Petra which is carved out of stone, or the Amman Citadel that dates back to the Bronze Age and towers over the city.

“Come for the experiences,” Haddad urges, “But stay for the food.”

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(For more Taking the Kids, visit www.takingthekids.com and also follow TakingTheKids on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram where Eileen Ogintz welcomes your questions and comments. The fourth edition of The Kid’s Guide to New York City and the third edition of The Kid’s Guide to Washington D.C. are the latest in a series of 14 books for kid travelers published by Eileen.)