What is Emirati cuisine?

It's almost as difficult to answer that question as it is to answer the question "What is U.S. cuisine?"  Emiratis are in the minority (somewhere around 15-20% of the population) in the Emirates, which partly explains why "Levantine" (Lebanese, Syrian, etc.) Arab dishes, not to mention Indian and Iranian foods, are more common here.  And for a whole host of cultural and historical reasons, Lebanese and Indian folks are more likely to open restaurants, which makes their cuisine more accessible and familiar to outsiders.  (I remember when the Super Bowl came to Detroit in 2006 and the local papers tried to tell visitors what "Detroit foods" they should try: shawarma sandwiches, gyros, coney hotdogs...)

Anyway, our friend Rana took Nicole and I to the northern Emirates yesterday.  Rana and I needed to conduct some interviews at a college in Ras al Khaima (RAK for short) and, of course, Nicole's goal is to visit all seven Emirates while we're here, so she joined us for an interesting drive an hour or so north of Sharjah through the desert.  The work at the University went well after an exciting diversion.  We stopped in "downtown RAK" to get directions at a cell phone store.  The manager, a Syrian like Rana, happily offered to have us follow him to the campus since the route there is confusing thanks to road construction.  We inadvertently followed the wrong car.  Our "lead car" pulled into a driver's training facility, which seemed odd.  We pulled up next to the car, which had tinted windows, and the driver didn't roll down his window, which also seemed odd.  Two Indian guys got out--that seemed oddest of all.  We laughed pretty hard at that point, got directions, and were on our way.

We met with various administrators at the small, "start up" campus and had a productive couple of hours.  Afterward, cruising RAK, Nicole spotted a traditional Emirati cafe along the Gulf (here's where the cuisine comes back into the story...): low tables, outdoor seating on cushioned benches, no plates and silverware--sharing from common bowls is the norm--unless you really pester the waiters, great views of the water, no ladies present except Nicole and Rana.  Is Emirati eating really all that different from other Arab restaurants?  Put it this way: they didn't have bread.  Yes, you heard that right.  No pita.  No khoobez.

We shared some interesting dishes.  Dango, actually more South Asian than Emirati, is like a boiled chickpea dish with lots of cumin sprinkled on top.  Harees is also pretty hard to connect to one specific geographic or cultural group--we had it in Armenia and Lebanon too and it's very popular in Iraq, especially around Ashoura commemorations.  It's boiled wheat and chicken, cooked down into a porridge (Rana hates it).  Fu'ul (fava beans) was served room temperature with salt and lemon.  More "purely" Emirati was the sweet treat khabees, a kind of paste made from sugar and semolina (and possibly saffron and cardamom--any experts out there?).  So even a traditional Emirati cafe is cosmopolitan and hybrid, but very very tasty.