Tuesday, July 3, 2007
Sights you have to see in Baghdad
By Abu Saif, an Iraqi Journalist
A number of religious clerics released a statement and advised people to not eat fish from the Tigris river because they feed on the dead bodies, which the kidnappers kill and throw in the river. Plus, the river is polluted.
Baghdad was famous for its Masgoof fish, which is grilled fish roosted on wooden fire taken from the branches of special plant that grows on the shores of the Tigress, which gives is a special flavor.
Masgoof used to be served in restaurants along the famous Baghdad riverside street, Abu Nawas.
On the same river run the famous and the oldest street in Baghdad, which built at 1906 at Ottoman’s era, called al-Rasheed Street.
At the end of Rashed Street snakes the famous Mutanabi Street, which was built at the same time of Rashed Street. Mutanabi was famous for its weekly bookseller, open air bazaar. It was a tourists magnate. Iraqis, along with foreigners, used to sit and chitchat Shabander Café, which was a meeting point for intellectuals and educated people.
These are some of the sights that you should have seen when you visited Baghdad.
Now you cannot eat fish on Abu Nawas because of the pollution in the river and because half of the street is blocked, and people are not allowed to sit on the riverside because it is across the river from the Green Zone, or at least they shouldn’t because if the Green Zone was attacked, they’ll be suspects.
Mutanabi’s legend was first ruined by the curfew on Fridays. Then a car bomb that destroyed much of the stores and the Shabander Café.
Rasheed Street is also blocked and no one can go there nowadays.
More over, Iraqis who used to welcome you with a smile in these places are all gone and most of them have left the country.
If any one wants to taste Masgoof in these days or any of the Iraqi famous dishes, he or she will find that food in Iraqi restaurants at Syria, Amman or Cairo but of course the taste is different because it will not have the same flavor and it will be served by a desperate displaced Iraqis.
I know about this because,
I was there..
A number of religious clerics released a statement and advised people to not eat fish from the Tigris river because they feed on the dead bodies, which the kidnappers kill and throw in the river. Plus, the river is polluted.
Baghdad was famous for its Masgoof fish, which is grilled fish roosted on wooden fire taken from the branches of special plant that grows on the shores of the Tigress, which gives is a special flavor.
Masgoof used to be served in restaurants along the famous Baghdad riverside street, Abu Nawas.
On the same river run the famous and the oldest street in Baghdad, which built at 1906 at Ottoman’s era, called al-Rasheed Street.
At the end of Rashed Street snakes the famous Mutanabi Street, which was built at the same time of Rashed Street. Mutanabi was famous for its weekly bookseller, open air bazaar. It was a tourists magnate. Iraqis, along with foreigners, used to sit and chitchat Shabander Café, which was a meeting point for intellectuals and educated people.
These are some of the sights that you should have seen when you visited Baghdad.
Now you cannot eat fish on Abu Nawas because of the pollution in the river and because half of the street is blocked, and people are not allowed to sit on the riverside because it is across the river from the Green Zone, or at least they shouldn’t because if the Green Zone was attacked, they’ll be suspects.
Mutanabi’s legend was first ruined by the curfew on Fridays. Then a car bomb that destroyed much of the stores and the Shabander Café.
Rasheed Street is also blocked and no one can go there nowadays.
More over, Iraqis who used to welcome you with a smile in these places are all gone and most of them have left the country.
If any one wants to taste Masgoof in these days or any of the Iraqi famous dishes, he or she will find that food in Iraqi restaurants at Syria, Amman or Cairo but of course the taste is different because it will not have the same flavor and it will be served by a desperate displaced Iraqis.
I know about this because,
I was there..
posted by 24 Steps to Liberty at 6:52 PM | Permalink | 
4 Comments:
At July 5, 2007 3:52 PM, 
M.H.Z
Even though a person my age has never had the chance to sit at Abu nuas shore and enjoy Dijla's river side, I still felt the bitterness so deep, I went and walked in al-mutanabbi street tens of times and went through those beautiful books of old brown pages and wonderful smell, everyone finds something he's interested in there, even one who can't read a word, so beautiful memories, it's not about the restaurant or the good book we bought, it's so much deeper than that.
In the early 1980s, there was a rumor that fish in the Marshes fed on the bodies of Iraqi and Iranian soldiers who were killed in the war.
I was still a child and I thought all the fish came from the Marshes. Since then, I never ate fish again. I don’t eat sea food too because in my child mind, I thought it’s all the same.
And I tried to eat sea food more than a year ago, but my body is not used to it and I got sick.
Bad memories