Libyan Lamb

This weekend we had a very cultural experience.  Neil has the opportunity to work with several students and visiting scientists from the Middle East.  

This is Hamdan. He is from Oman--a very nice man. We met his lovely family a few months ago, but they have gone back to Oman.

This is Soheil from Pakistan. He was visiting for 6 months and is going home next week. There are also several Libyans in the department who like to have parties. They hosted this going away party at the park for Soheil. Neil warned us before hand that there would be some very interesting food to try--and lots of it! He also asked the men several times if the entire family was invited. "Yes, yes! Bring your wife and children!" But when we drove up we saw only men and a few kids. No wives to be seen. "They are at a different party" we were told. Oh well, we just decided to hang out anyway and see what happened.

It turns out they had an entire lamb to barbecue!   One of them had gone to a feed lot earlier in the day and slaughtered the lamb himself (a ritual required in Islam).  This is only a small part of the meat that was to be grilled and consumed!   There was also a heaping stack of chicken that I was looking forward to trying.

 The roasted vegetables were very delicious.  They had green peppers, hot peppers, tomatoes, egg plant, and whole onions on the grill.  When they were cooked they pureed them in a small food processor.  It was like a salsa that we dipped french bread in.  Yum!

As you can see, there were varying reactions to tasting the lamb.  Emily never could quite get herself to taste it.   It is understandable though.  The Fort Collins High School mascot is a Lambkin!   It just seemed a bit cannibalistic or something!  It was very tasty meat though--if you could get over the fact that the lamb had been "frolicking early this morning" (according to Emily).   

Do you think Mara is just posing?  You'll have to ask her!

Jeffrey made some new friends.  These were about the cutest kids we had ever seen!

Mark missed out on most of the meat controversy.  We were right next to the skate park and he loves to skate!

Jeff made some new friends of a different sort at the skate park.   He just blows our introverted minds sometimes!  On the way to the car he said, "Did you see that one dude?  He was wicked crazy!"  Looks like he picked up some jargon too. 

We never did get to taste the chicken.  It turns out that they have to cook the entire lamb (organs and all) before they can cook the chicken.  No meat mixing I guess.   When it appeared that they would be grilling their savory meat well past dark, we decided to call it a night.  A very interesting one at that.