Food and Hospitality in Palestine Part Two
Hospitality In Palestine:
Surprisingly, Palestine is known to be a very hospitable country even if you are a total stranger. If you are walking down a street in Palestine, it is custom for even strangers to greet you and welcome you into their home. Usually, the host will invite you into their home around three times. You should decline the first two times to be polite. If you do want to enter the person's house, you can politely accept the invitation the third time. Once you enter the person's home you will be offered coffee or tea. You should drink the coffee to be polite because you are in the hands of the host. Traditionally, the coffee that will be offered to you contains cardamom, a spice. This coffee usually does not contain sugar; however, if you look foreign they might give you a slightly sweetened version. After coffee, you will be offered food. A traditional plate that they will offer you is Maqluba. Palestine takes great pride in being hospitable.
Source: http://blog.toursinenglish.com/2012/02/palestinian-hospitality.html
I wanted to comment on your post regarding the importance of refusing hospitality twice and not accepting until the third offer. This has also been important in other countries I have visited such as Syria, Lebanon and Jordan. It does not just hold for entering someone's home as a guest, but for accepting anything offered - it is a sign of politeness. So from the other perspective, if you are offering something to someone from the Middle East (and some other cultures) you should make sure to offer three times because the first two times they may be refusing out of politeness.
ReplyDeletePS there is a great video on Leila's Iran Blog: mena160airan.blogspot.com
ReplyDeletewhich shows this concept when it can be taken to extremes in Iranian culture.