About YemenKitchen

This blog focuses on Yemeni Food with a historical twist .Food evolution in Yemen had been influenced by many flavors coming from Africa, India, and Turkey. Yemenis were famous for their long travels either as Fishermen at the seashores of Africa and the Indian Ocean or as Merchants in the Far East and India, bringing spices and food recipes that found their way to the Yemeni kitchen and blended with the local tastes. Yemen was also part of the Turkish Empire for centuries. It strongly influenced food, especially in the bigger cities of Yemen, such as Sana’a, Taiz, and Ibb.
When talking about food in Yemen it is important also to notice how geography changes what people serve in their tables, traditional Yemeni food tend to depend on seasonal vegetables and the nearest source of protein available. For instance, Food in Aden, tend to depend more on fish since it’s a city that lies on the foot of Arab Sea. On the other hand, traditional food in Sana’a tends to be revolving around meat, chicken, and lamb for their abundance and for its distance from the sea.
Of course this had changed now with people adapting to modern urban life styles, however, food served became part of the identity of the regions it came from. This can also be generalized towards bread as well, where historically it was the main source of carbohydrates for Yemenis from thousands of years. As in any agricultural community, Yemenis ate from what their land produced, which were grains.
Rice and Potatoes weren’t common, at least in the Northern areas until the early 1950’s and 1960’s.
That being said, there are a lot of bread types that most of people in Yemen’s urban areas still don’t know about yet, and that due to the r…egionalism of this country .Mountains in Yemen were hard to travel through. A trip that could take 3-4 hours by car now would take a whole week of traveling on a donkey; each region had to survive by being dependant on its local crop and rely on its own resources. For that also, Yemenis tend to have so much dialects, which is another story, for another blog! 🙂