Beirut, March 2015

A few years ago, Dana and I flew from Qingdao, China to Hanoi, Vietnam. Although I knew better, part of me expected to see abundant examples of Communist drab as well as the scars of the American-Vietnamese War. Logic and endless numbers of articles in the Economist and the New Yorker about Vietnam's "tiger economy" should have led me to assume that I was about to land in a country where development was well established. I am ashamed to say that I did not assume this notion. Instead, I allowed the past to shape my expectations. Rambo held sway over Thomas Friedman. So I was shocked to find that Hanoi boasts breathtaking urban parks, a vibrant artistic community, a myriad of fine cafes, and a pulsing night life (not that I participated but it certainly kept me awake). Shame on me for allowing the past to shape so much of my present.

Fast forward to 2015. Dana and I need a break from Cairo and so we book a long weekend in Beirut. Did I learn anything from my experience in Hanoi? No, I did not. I am an idiot.

There is a bit of backstory that comes into play, a splash of history to explain my lunacy. In late 1983, as I approached my 18th birthday, I was legally obligated to register for the Selective Service System. Though a draft had not occurred for well over a decade, I walked to the post office that day to register, brooding over the likelihood of the government reintroducing conscription. Recent events weighed heavily on my mind. In October of 1983, just a month before I registered for a potential draft, U.S. troops were participating in the fighting in the Lebanese Civil War. In fact in October of '83, some 250 U.S. troops were killed when a suicide bomber attacked a U.S. military installation near ... Beirut. If a draft had happened in 1984, it seemed to me at the time that the most likely place I would have been sent to fight was Beirut.

Over 30 years later, I am hesitant to say that I am landing in Rafic Hariri International Airport expecting to see the visible remains of Lebanon's Civil War; the one that ended in 25 years ago. Damn the past.

Flying in, Beirut looks a lot like a smaller version of Athens. The city proper sits on a rocky promontory that juts out into the Mediterranean. Surrounded by pine-clad mountains that slope right into the sea, Beirut's location and situation could not be more majestic. With four distinct seasons, nearby skiing and hiking, sandy beaches and kilometers of relatively unspoiled coast, the city has much to offer. During our three day stay here, we find even more.

We arrive at our hotel in the late morning, ditching our bags and setting out to explore the city on foot. Although we try to avoid making comparisons between Beirut and Cairo, we cannot avoid taking note of a couple of stark contrasts. First, Cairo has a garbage and trash problem. Beirut doesn't, at least not moreso than any other developed urban cluster. Beirut and its streets are clean; no dust and very little trash. Second, Cairo has kilometer after kilometer of vacant buildings, the result of the Mubarak-era housing bubble bust. Beirut's existing buildings seem to be occupied and many new skyscrapers are being erected. Beirut is developing into an ultra-modern city, although we can still see skeletons of bombed-out residential hulks in almost every neighborhood. Here in Beirut, markets of fresh produce abound, something similar to Cairo, but the local produce merchants operate out of small "super" markets reminiscent of the "hypermarkets" I found in London and Edinburgh. I do not see the empty, dusty store fronts and the buildings, completely vacated and forlorn, that I do in Cairo. Instead I see flower shops (hundreds), sweet shops (dozens), boutique clothing stores (hundreds), cafes, bistros, cigars shops, nut roasters, etc., punctuated by the occasional urban petrol station. This is not the war-torn city of my selective memory, and it certainly is not a city like Cairo. I admit that I do not feel as if I am in Paris, but I could easily imagine myself in Athens or Barcelona. 

We spend the next couple of days, blithely walking through the city, absolute beginners and complete tourists. We eat in several quaint bistros, spending extra time and change splurging on decadent desserts and cappuccinos. With a couple of friends from Cairo, we tour the local caverns and a nearby winery. We travel just north of the city to the ruins of Byblos, an impressive expanse of ancient settlements. In Byblos, we can make out distinct layers of ruins: Neolithic, Bronze Age, Iron Age, Phoenician, Greek, Roman, Byzantine, and Crusader. We take in the small but meticulously curated National Museum. We walk around the city's central mosque which stands adjacent to the city's main Christian cathedral, an aspect of Beirut that seems to defy history from repeating itself.

Early on in our stay, we find ourselves lulled into the easy, progressive rhythm of the city, forgetting that Hamas and Hezbollah conduct clandestine meetings and operations within the city walls. Bombs still detonate in Beirut, albeit infrequently. A little under a decade ago for example, former Prime Minister and national hero, Rafic Hariri, along with 22 others, died in a horrific bomb blast right in the heart of the downtown area. In the past five years, 1.5 million refugees from neighboring Syria have poured into the country, increasing the population by almost one-third. These refugees are desperate, and desperate people sometimes act in ways that they ordinarily would not. Beirut is not perfect. We see this and we know this, but it is a concept that is at times difficult to believe.

By the end of our three days, we feel as if we have just scratched the surface. On the ride to the airport, Dana and I are already planning to return. She wants more time to scour the beaches, and I want to travel south to see the ruins of Sidon and Tyre. We both want added time to explore more of the city and to get out into the countryside.

Flying out and over the city, I watch as the glistening lights of Beirut begin to fade, merging with the purple horizon. I feel like I owe the people of Lebanon and Beirut an apology for being such an idiot, assuming the worst about the country; that nothing had changed during the last quarter of a century. I am more than a little ashamed of myself. I should know better. I should keep up. I should read more that just the front page of the WSJ. I should give CNN a break and make better use of the miracle that is the Internet. I should talk with people who have travelled more than I ever hope to; and I should listen a little better than I tend to do.

Next time I visit this majestic city - and there will certainly be a next time - I will open my eyes and ears, taking the time to put the past into its proper perspective.

Say "Cheese."

Once per week, Dana and I buy a couple of blocks of Australian cheddar cheese produced - of course - by a local dairy firm here in Egypt. The quarter-pound blocks that we purchase are about the length, width and breadth of your outstretched hand, that is if your hand was square and vacuum sealed. When unwrapped, the tawny, blond cheese has a fresh, rich aroma and a creamy, buttery taste. A versatile cheese, the cheddar works well in cooked dishes and in salads, or is perfectly fine as a stand-alone snack. We love it.

Although I do not know this, I assume that this particular variety of "white" cheddar is synonymous with the cheese making industry in Australia. I know it is not of Egyptian origin. Cheese making in Egypt goes back thousands of years, but the local cheeses are either the soft white mounds that we often associate with Greece, or a hard, smelly Parmesan-like thing called, "Roumy." My sole experience with Roumy happened in late 2013 and lasted for approximately five very unpleasant minutes. That's how long the aftertaste loitered on my tongue. Dana and I were walking through the dairy aisle at a local supermarket and happened upon a booth where a sampling of all kinds of local cheeses was arrayed. I thought that the local Parmesan might be worth a try. Innocently poised at the end of the toothpick, the nugget I selected looked just like Parmesan. It wasn't. It wasn't Parmesan and it wasn't innocent. Far from it. It was mummy's ass. That's what I remember thinking at the time. That was right about the time when the lady behind the booth pronounced this stale, dusty bit of putrefaction as being "Roumy."

I know I made a face. I couldn't help it. I couldn't dial in my disgust quickly enough, having just ingested the dusty, moldy, assy insides of some series of faraway sarcophagi. I swallowed the nasty little blob without further chewing. It slimed down down my throat like a boogery hawker. Through gritted teeth, I forced a wincing smile, thanking the woman at the booth. I wheeled around, Dana trailing after me. She was giggling.

"That bad?"

"Unbelievably. Terrible. Mummy ass," my voice was weak.

"You're being overly dramatic."

"We can go back. I think there might be another sliver of butt left."

"I think I'll pass. You gonna be alright?" Still giggling. Not helpful, especially given the strong aftertaste of mummy tuchas still shaking its can in my mouth.

But I digress ... We love the local "Australian" cheddar. It's lovely and creamy and whitish-yellow, just like cheddar should be. If this opinion about the color of cheddar is true - and I now wholeheartedly believe that it is - then what in hell kind of orange-tainted shittiness have I been eating all of these years? American singles? Waxy and orange. Velveeta? Gooey and orange. Okay, maybe American singles and Velveeta don't qualify as being cheeses, but even a decent Winconsin cheddar is orange. And the hats that the Packers fans in Green Bay wear? They're orange, too. What gives? I was raised in a universe where cheddar is orange. Why the change?

I have been troubled by this issue enough recently to bother to try to find an answer. According to Cecil Adams of the The Straight Dope, we have the English to blame. Cecil claims that years and years ago, cheese lovers in England began to equate orangish-yellow cheddar as being of a higher quality than the tawny-colored cheddar. Back before the days of industrialized farming and cattle being cannibalized with human-produced feed made from grains and offal, dairy cows were always fed a diet of grass in the summer months and hay in the winter months. The cow milk in the summer was rich in beta-carotene, the vitamin that helps to give carrots their lovely orange hue. Not to say that summer cow milk was orange, but it was apparently a different color that the cow milk in the winter. Customers began to demand the "more wholesome" cheese made from summer milk and so farmers obliged by adding a little annatto seed coloring (a natural orange colorant) to all of their cheese-making endeavors. The dye gave the cheddars a consistent color throughout the year and the specific orangish shade that early English consumers believed to be synonymous with cheese greatness.

So much for the history lesson. Thanks, Cecil.

Now that I have a little intellectual capital at my disposal, I know enough to say that I don't like my cheddar being orange. Here's why.

I looked up some information on the annatto seed, the stuff used to make the dye that cheese makers put into cheddar. The seed is naturally occurring and innocuous enough. Annatto is apparently flavorful and may even have some health benefits. But the tree that produces the seeds is a tropical tree, and so those little seeds, the ones that are eventually crushed into the dye that turns my cheddar into something resembling the color of a carrot, have quite a carbon footprint. These days I prefer to dine locally when I can. I would like to believe that my preference for local foods may actually help local people. If I were in the tropics, I would be okay with eating orange cheddar. In Egypt or in Tennessee, I would prefer a less well-traveled, less global cheese.

I am also thinking that annatto oil is probably a little pricey, pricey enough to tempt a few wily cheese makers into using using chemical equivalents - like perhaps F, D & C powdered dyes - as substitutes for a natural oil. I'm old, and that means I have eaten enough crummy things to clog up my arteries and constrict the blood vessels in my brain. I don't need any more gunk. So I will pass on the powdered dyes and food coloring agents.

I also like the idea of eating foods that are coming to me in a more-or-less natural state in terms of color and taste. Some barmy English hill-jack a couple of hundred years ago decided that orange cheese was better. That does not mean that I have to blindly follow this decision. Indeed, now that I have a choice, I would like to make a different decision altogether. I would like to have my cheddar look a little more cheddar-like and a little less carrot-like.

So despite the ridiculousness of the idea of purchasing Australian cheddar in Egypt, I will stick with the local variety of dun-colored cheese produced here in Cairo and not dyed with a seed transported from far away, or worse, colored with some chemical agent. I will not however, go completely local to switch to the local "Parmesan." Nope, I will enjoy my expensive imported Italian Parmesan along with its massive carbon footprint. My liberalism does, after all, have its limits.