Bedouin Camp Ritual · Underground Barbecue
Zarb
🔥
Photo coming soon
The whole meal cooks buried under sand — a pit is dug, lined with hot coals, loaded with stacked pots of meat, chicken, and rice, then sealed over and left to steam for hours before being dug back up in front of guests.
Meat and vegetables are layered into tiered pots lowered into a charcoal-lined pit dug straight into the desert floor, covered with cloth and sand, and left to slow-cook for several hours. Wadi Rum's Bedouin camps dig it up at sunset as the centerpiece of the evening meal.
Why it's made this way: The technique comes directly from Bedouin desert life, where an underground pit doubled as an oven that needed no fuel to tend once sealed — ideal for a mobile, resource-scarce way of life.
More from Jordan
Part of World of Street Food — 3248 dishes from 118 countries.
Something wrong here? Tell us in the comments below.
Photo credits.