To Eat is to Perform

Reclaiming eating practices, one handful at a time

Tracing my unease around eating traditional Iraqi food with my hands back to the legacy of British colonialism helped me realize the importance of reclaiming eating practices and embracing my culture in its full, unapologetic form.

By Lara Mohammed for our BODY issue | Guest edited by

Apoorva Sripathi

One evening in Doha — where I was this time last year, on a six-month internship — I went with some friends to dinner at an Iraqi restaurant at Souq Waqif. We ate classic stews — the kinds you usually eat at your mum’s house. One had white beans (fasoolia beytha) and one had okra (bamya). Both were simmered in tomato broth with lamb chunks and served with white basmati rice. We shared tabbouleh and an “Iraqi salad,” which I’d correctly guessed would be like the iceberg lettuce-based salads that my mum used to make for us when we were younger, and had some Iraqi dolma (rice-stuffed vegetables); one brave soul even ordered pacha (stewed sheep’s head) to try for the first time. Finally, we ordered masgouf, a dish of butterflied carp, brushed in a tamarind marinade and mounted on spikes before being cooked on a fire.

When the masgouf finally arrived, it was butterflied from head to tail, glistening with the sweet marinade, cushioned on either side with a sliced white onion and parsley salad and topped with lemon wedges. Accompanied by complimentary stacks of khobez tanoor — a large chewy flatbread cooked in a vertical clay oven — and small bowls of amba (a spiced mango pickle), the dish beckoned us to dig in. But I hesitated.

Traditionally, masgouf is eaten using your hands. This makes sense, as the fish is extremely bony and fingers are the perfect tools for picking out tiny bones. Yet I felt shy about eating this way in public.

I couldn’t help but watch all the cargo-clad tourists pass by us on the busy streets of the souq. I thought I could feel their eyes on me. The tables around us were mostly occupied by locals, who, I’m sure, knew that using your hands was the proper way to enjoy masgouf, but even they made me feel self-conscious. Afraid of being judged, I turned to my dining companions, all fellow Arabs.

“Masgouf should be eaten with your hands,” I said aloud. The table was too distracted by the food to respond, but as we all began eating, I looked around to see some of the men and women around me digging into the carp with their hands, while others chose to use cutlery. Despite my hesitations, nobody batted an eyelid when I used my fingers to pull the bones away from the tender flesh before popping each delicious bite, with onion and bread, into my mouth.

Illustration by Zoë Johnson.

***

Masgouf has been one of my favourite dishes since I first tried it at home in London.

My mum happened to know somebody who knew somebody who was grilling it in their garden, and we ordered some for pickup.¹ My sister and I were sitting at the kitchen table for lunch when my mum served it, as we might do on any other day we happened to be together — aside from the unfamiliar fish sitting in the middle of us. My mum brought out a jar of amba, which at the time my sister and I were only vaguely familiar with, and spooned it into ramekins. This amba is made from mangoes, she told us. It’s an important part of this meal.

She also told us that, unlike most other food we ate at home, this strange fish would be traditionally eaten by hand — making it, along with chicken drumsticks and pizza, one of the only exceptions to her strict rules that equated cutlery use with good table manners. At first, I found the concept very unusual, considering it was a whole fish, and an oily one at that. But in the end, I loved the lunch’s eccentricity, the tang of tamarind it left on my tongue and and grease it left on my greedy fingers as I hungrily scooped it into my mouth.

To this day, part of what I love about masgouf is how it makes me feel connected to my Iraqi culture. As somebody who has lived their whole life in diaspora, I, like so many others, have often felt like I live between two worlds. I was born and raised in London by my mother, a first-generation Iraqi who came to the UK with her family after the Gulf War in the late 90s. My sister and I went through the British school system, “making” us British in a plethora of ways. But at home, there were lots of practices our mum maintained that were very Iraqi — including the food we ate and the language we spoke. My mother always tried to instill a strong sense of Arab identity in my sister and me, even if our exposure to it was uneven. Afraid of losing her culture in a country which is far from home and embraces some values she does not share, when we were growing up, she always reminded us that we are Iraqi, not English.²

Though my sister and I have never even visited Baghdad, we understand what it means to be Iraqi through encounters with masses of Iraqi women over the years, who have fed, cared for, doted on, and raised me in part. My mother and her friends taught us what meals are often served at home and which are more appropriate for azeemas (parties). It was from them that we learned how to dance, tell stories, and show kindness and love. They wanted to foster a sense of pride in a culture we could have easily dismissed by living in the UK.

The contexts through which I was exposed to “Iraqi-ness” tended to be feminine and social, leaving gaps in my cultural knowledge.³ I often feel like there is so much that I don’t understand about being Iraqi, which is perhaps why experiences like eating masgouf are important to me. They make me feel closer to the culture I’ve inherited from my parents. Because masgouf is not a dish you typically make at home, before that evening in Qatar, I’d only enjoyed it a few times after eating it that day on our kitchen table. And never had I eaten it so publicly as at that Doha restaurant.

***

When we were young, my mother consistently told us off for speaking English with her⁴, cooked us the meals she grew up with, and regaled us with stories about her life in Baghdad. However, when it came to table manners, she rejected Iraqi traditions more than I think she realized.

Iraqi eating culture has shifted significantly over the past hundred years. Like many other countries around the world, in Iraq, it is traditional to eat with your hands. However, by the time my mum was growing up, using cutlery had become far more commonplace (in Baghdad at least), and at my mum’s table in London, cutlery was a must. I remember her explaining that “good” manners are defined by using a fork and knife correctly to take small, elegant bites, subsequently (but not intentionally) implying that our traditional practices are improper. Although we often ate traditional Arabic dishes in the homes of friends and family, we always used cutlery. When invited to an azeema, for example, it would have been considered a grave faux pas to eat dolma with your hands. Perhaps this is because of a loss of the tradition of eating with one's hands experienced among the last generation or so of Arabs, both in the UK and in the Arab world, who collectively feel shame for not adhering to what I now realize are Western norms of dining etiquette.

In the Middle East, as well as parts of South Asia and Africa, eating from a communal plate (seyneyah) by hand is common and symbolizes a culture of hospitality. “Cultural norms and taboos do not exist in a vacuum — they are often rooted in a wider belief system,” writes Shahnaz Ahsan in “Who needs cutlery anyway?”. Indeed, in the Arab world, Islam has played an important role in shaping eating practices.

Though it is not explicitly written in the Quran, the holy book urges Muslims to live by the Prophet Muhammad’s (PBUH)⁵ example, and he is said to have eaten with his right hand as it encourages mindfulness, community, and gratitude. The Sunnah — the sayings, actions, and approvals of the Prophet (PBUH), which outline the ideal but non-obligatory way for Muslims to live — established a nuanced code of dining etiquette long before Western imperial powers exerted influence over Iraq. These rules are vividly illustrated in Al-Kitab al-Bukhala (The Book of Misers, also known as Avarice and the Avaricious), a satirical collection by the Arab polymath Al-Jahiz, born in Basra in 776 AD. In it, he humorously critiques various types of ill-mannered dinner guests: the snatcher, the sponger, the crammer, the center-hollower, the mouth-full speaker, the excessive dipper, and the finger-licker — each provoking distinct forms of disgust at the table.

The rules of eating in Iraq changed in part due to the influence of the British, which began in the 18th century. In 1789, the first British residency was established in Baghdad; soon after, a British consul opened in Basra. For the next hundred years or so, Britain’s interest in Iraq primarily related to trade and maintaining influence in the Persian Gulf region through the East India Company, but it did not involve direct colonial rule or military occupation. But at the end of World War I, Britain established a colonial regime in Iraq under a League of Nations mandate, enforcing military control, reshaping the state structure, and suppressing Iraqi resistance. The country remained under British control until 1932, when the Kingdom of Iraq was formally recognized as an independent state.⁶

Prior to colonization, there was a long history of appreciation for Arab craftsmanship and scientific study in the West, from textiles and tilework to geometry and medicine. However, the introduction of colonial narratives shifted attitudes about Arab cultures towards perceptions of incivility. As in all the lands brutally colonized by the British Empire, the supposed “inferiority” of local populations — measured with a yardstick that included one’s eating practices — allowed the British to wage campaigns of extraction and dispossession under the guise of teaching native populations “civility” (e.g., table manners and the English language).

In A Taste of Empire: How Britain's Obsession with Food Shaped the Modern World, Lizzie Collingham uses the case of India to demonstrate this phenomenon. She notes how, after major uprisings against British rule in 1857, expectations of how East India Company officials should present themselves changed. Gone were those who “behaved like an Indian grandee”; they were replaced by individuals embodying ideals of polite, middle-class British society. The goal was to bring India into the modern age by replacing “disturbing” Indian practices with British “moral superiority” and “prestige”. In the colonies, then, “British men and women were permanently on display to the ‘natives’”, expected to serve as models of behaviour in all aspects of life — including table manners. Collingham emphasizes that “the colonial dining room was seen as a stage where the official put on a performance of civilization.” Handbooks like The Englishwoman in India (1864) advised British women to ship their Wedgwood tableware and cutlery to the colonies so that their dining tables could serve as examples of proper British customs.⁷ By presenting British practices as aspirational and local customs as backward, colonial authorities further legitimized their control.

While much writing on diasporic foodways has focused on ingredients and dishes, how we eat is just as significant a connection to our ancestors. Ingredients may survive colonization, but eating practices appear more easily changed. Iraq, of course, does not share the same history as India, but the nature in which British officials approached the local culture there is suggestive of their attitude towards the entire empire, with all the damage it caused. As I get older, I’m starting to realize that the shame I felt digging into masgouf with my fingers — and my mother’s fixation on (Western) table manners, and rejection of traditional ways of eating — is driven by a fear of being seen as uncivilized, a fear fuelled by a long history of British imperialism and the racism that continues to underpin it. These systems of oppression have shaped the ways that I, my mother, and so many others like us have abandoned the set of rules that dictated proper manners and eating etiquette in Iraq long before Western imperialism.

***

Food is a pleasure and a joy, but for many of us in the diaspora, it is also a performance. Identity, in a way, is a performance too. Growing up in London and attending a majority-white school, I didn’t outright reject my culture, but I also didn’t wear it openly. The way I engaged with food, language, and music was shaped by an awareness that certain things marked me as different. I listened to 2000s Arabic pop in my mum’s car — Amr Diab, Kathim Al Sahir, Nancy Ajram, Sherine — but rarely played it outside. I grew up eating traditional Iraqi/Kurdish⁸ food every week at my grandmother’s house, but always with a fork and knife. At the time, I didn’t realize that these small hesitations were part of a larger, inherited experience — one shaped by colonial narratives that have long deemed certain cultural practices, like eating with your hands, as "uncivilized”.

As I’ve grown older, I’ve begun to see things differently. The way I feel about re-embracing my culture is not unique to me — it’s something I’ve seen reflected in so many young people in the diaspora. There is a collective shift, a growing pride in our traditions that were once dismissed. Artists like Elyanna — who became the first performer to sing an entire set in Arabic at Coachella in 2023 — and Saint Levant, who performed there in 2024, are examples of this cultural reclamation. We are no longer content with diluting ourselves to fit Western expectations; instead, we are embracing our histories in their full, unapologetic form.

In a world where Arabs are vilified, dehumanized, and reduced to one-dimensional narratives, I now understand how important it is to wear my culture on my sleeve. Not just for myself, but so others might see us as we truly are — not as subjects of an orientalist gaze, but as people with rich, living traditions. One step towards this is being open to experiencing food differently. Though I grew up immersed in my parents' culture, living in diaspora means there are always gaps in my interpretation of it. Reclaiming traditional practices can feel difficult, especially when they contradict the ways we've been taught to act. Eating by hand is one example, but the effects of imperialist and colonial narratives extend into so many parts of daily life, often in ways we don’t even consciously recognize. Becoming aware of these influences and being open to re-embracing what was lost is the path to reclaiming our culture in the diaspora.

An Iraqi friend of mine still eats stews and rice by hand at home — foods that, growing up, I wouldn’t have been able to imagine eating without a spoon and fork. His mother pours the stew onto the rice and mixes it before serving, and everyone tucks in. As I begin to tap back into the practice, I’m finding eating with my hands to be a far more mindful experience than using utensils. Feeling each morsel in my fingers makes me feel so much more connected to my food, whether it’s finger food or stew. Each bite is tastier, and some people suggest that eating this way may even improve digestion. So next time I’m served masgouf, I will dig in with my fingers — without hesitation, without reservation, and with the full knowledge that in doing so, I am honouring the generations before me and those yet to come.

Lara Mohammad is a British-Iraqi History graduate based in London and the creator of ZestyZaytoon, a blog dedicated to her love for food.

1. This kind of happenstance strikes me as emblematic of the diasporic experience, where heritage is preserved not necessarily by direct lineage but through scattered, improvised, and communal acts of cultural transmission.

2. While sometimes it felt invalidating to our experience growing up in the UK, I know that she meant well.

3. This has resulted in a unique interpretation of what it means to be Iraqi, which I believe is still entirely valid.

4. She still does!

5. An abbreviation of “Peace be upon him”.

6. The long history of British imperialism serves as a testament to the enduring influence Britain has had on Iraqi culture because of the long history of British imperialism. In fact, there are several classic Iraqi dishes that I believe are directly influenced by this history — one of which is trifle. It may come as a surprise, but trifle often makes an appearance at azeemas; I have one, with a particular auntie who is often hailed as the one who makes it best.

7. How cutlery came to be seen as “British” itself is a convoluted story, worthy of more exploration than we can give it in this piece!

8. My grandmother is Kurdish, so lots of the food we ate at her house — and the dishes my mother makes, as a matter of fact — are the Kurdish versions of Iraqi favourites. Iraqi dolma is made with a variety of vegetables such as aubergines, marrow, onions, vine leaves, peppers, and tomatoes, all stuffed with a flavourful rice filling and cooked in a tomato and pomegranate molasses broth. In contrast, Kurdish dolma primarily uses onions and vine leaves, with a yogurt and dill broth as the base, and includes broad beans as a key ingredient. The dolma is cooked in a huge pot for hours and is flipped upside down onto a large plate when it’s finished cooking. The dolma is stacked in the pot in a way that causes it to appear almost geometric and artistic in appearance if flipped properly. Lamb chops crown the top of the plate, sitting on top of mounds of stuffed onion shells, rice-filled vine leaf parcels, and succulent broad beans — some dolma tumble to the bottom, where they sit collecting broth.