Um Ali

Yummmm.

There is a dessert here that is the ultimate in comfort food. Um Ali. More like Yum Ali to me. It is the ulitmate in bread pudding. If you're a bread pudding fan, and I am, there is nothing more disappointing and a waste of calories than dry, bland bread pudding - even with a whiskey sauce spice it up. To me, it needs to be soft, gooey, creamy, sweet, and hot. I order bread pudding from all over the world, and finally I've found the answer to my dreams. Um Ali. It is everything I want bread pudding to be.




The bread absorbs the cream and sugar to become soft and velvety in your mouth. As you are enjoying the warm creamy goodness, you run across a small chewy morsel - either almond or pistachio. Many recipes call for sultanas (golden raisins). And the secret ingredient is a small addition of rose water syrup - just a hint of floral aromas to make you wonder, hmmm what is that?


All Arabic cuisines - Egyptian, Lebanese, Syrian, Emirati, Saudi, etc -claim that Um Ali is theirs. Each chef has her/his own signature ingredient to slightly alter the flavors: cardamom, cinnamon, rose water, coconut, or cashews. But it's all good - every single time. No buffet would be complete without Um Ali on the dessert table.


Yesterday, Lyra was invited to a birthday party for a classmate, Abdulrahman. It was our first invitation to an Arab household since we arrived. Many of her classmates were there and I sat and visited with the moms. We were: Lebanese, Indian, Greek (now Emirati by marriage), Palestinian, and American. When I arrived I had failed to catch the name of Abdulrahman's (Aboud for short) mother and I asked the moms at the table, "What is her name?" They said, "Um Aboud" which means mother of Aboud and then struggled to remember her given name, Abeer. In the Gulf Arab culture, when a woman has her first son, they call her "Um [name of eldest son]". The other Arab mothers, Lebanese and Palastinian, didn't have the same tradition in their cultures. The Greek mother in our group, Miriam, said that she has struggled to get used to being called Um Majid (her son's name). Everyone in her husband's family calls her this - and she says she always forgets to answer until they call out her name, Miriam. I will ask her, but I think that Miriam is her Muslim name. Many people will take a new name if they convert to Islam - which I'm pretty sure she converted and was not raised Muslim (there's not too many Greek Muslims).

So, now I know that Um Ali means "Mother of Ali." Whoever Ali was, his mama cooks a mean bread pudding. Now that's the ultimate in comfort - having a dessert named "Mama".

Here's a link to a simple recipe that you can try for yourself: http://aromahope.blogspot.com/2007/04/umm-ali.html