ON Thursday, 1 June 2023, Jordan’s Crown Prince Al Hussein bin Abdullah II, 28, married Saudi architect Rajwa Alseif, 29, in a royal ceremony that had guests like US First Lady Jill Biden, the UK’s Prince William and Kate, among others, in attendance. While the couple’s engagement in August last year was held in Riyadh, the royal wedding was held in Jordan’s capital, Amman, in the presence of Hussein’s parents — King Abdullah II and Queen Rania. They hosted the “Katb Al Kitab” ceremony at Zahran Palace, which was followed by a royal procession to the Al Husseiniya Palace, the venue for the reception (and the official residence of the Hashemite family in Amman).
While details of the reception and banquet were kept private, the newlyweds did greet their royal counterparts from other nations, and cut a six-storey cake. Since no details about the banquet menu were shared with the press, it isn’t known if private staff catered the event, or if one of Amman’s upscale eateries like Fakhreldin (which specialises in Levant cuisine), Sufra, Tawaheen Al Hawa (known for its mansaf, maqluba, and grilled meat selection), Kan Zaman or Sabor had been appointed to provide the refreshments.
Going by the Hashemites’ profile, the banquet may have featured a mix of traditional Jordanian dishes as well as modern fusion cuisine, and of course more global/Western flavours as well. In Jordan, a traditional feast is known as “majlis” and demands a generous spread of various dishes. These may include mansaf — Jordan’s national dish, this consists of lamb cooked in a fermented dried yogurt sauce, served on a bed of rice and topped with nuts and parsley; maqluba (rice, meat and vegetables layered in one pot then flipped upside down before serving); as also musakhan, traditional Palestinian-Jordanian dish featuring roasted chicken, sumac-seasoned onions, and a flatbread called taboon. Freekeh, a roasted green wheat grain cooked with chicken or lamb and seasoned with spices; fattoush and hummus may round off a majlis.
Of course, celebrations also demand sweets, and Jordanian cuisine has a plethora for such occasions. One imagines that apart from the de rigueur baklava, delicacies from the region, such as knafeh (shredded phyllo dough or semolina pastry layered with sweet cheese and a generous drizzle of sugar syrup), ma'amoul (intricately shaped delicate shortbread-like cookies filled with dates and nuts), awameh (reminiscent of gulab jamun, these are deep-fried dough balls coated in a light sugar syrup), halawet el-jibn (thin layer of sweetened cheese dough that is rolled up and filled with a mixture of clotted cream or sweetened cream cheese), atayef (small pancake-like pastries) and a whole lot more.
Traditional drinks like arak (an anise-flavoured beverage), sahlab (an orchid root powder, milk and sugar mix typically flavoured with rosewater or orange blossom water and sprinkled with ground cinnamon) and jallab (grape molasses, rose water, date syrup mixed in chilled water) may have been served alongside the prerequisites of mint tea and Arabic coffee.